Heaven is a Place on Earth
by Ashirenne
Summary: In a Tokyo that's left behind after a virus devastated humanity, Eli carries on her life in a manner that her previous self would've never foreseen, complete with a family that's even stranger than the circumstances that humanity is now left in. That is, until it brings her on a head-on collision course with the most powerful person in Tokyo. AU, Soldier Game trio centric.
1. Pain of Yesterday

**Summary:** In a Tokyo that's left behind after a virus devastated humanity, Eli carries on her life in a manner that her previous self would've never foreseen, complete with a family that's even stranger than the circumstances that humanity is now left in: a bounty hunter named Umi and a surgeon named Maki. That is, of course, until it brings her on a head-on collision course with the most powerful person in the Tokyo District, who holds the keys to what she's been working towards in the palm of her hand.

Post-apocalyptic AU, Soldier Game trio centric.

* * *

 **Notes:** This idea's been brewing in my head for quite awhile now and I finally had the chance to sit down and write this. Originally inspired by the anime Black Bullet, I finally got the ideas I needed from the Thief Eli and Victorian Nozomi cards in SIF.

 **Main Pairings** : NozoEli, KotoUmi, NicoMaki, and slight RinPana

The title was inspired by fripside's song of the same name. (I listen to too much Nanjolno for my own good, not gonna lie)

T rated for language and a bit of violence.

Originally posted on AO3.

 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing apart from my own ideas.

* * *

 _Case Report # 1107._  
Time: 1637  
Date: 29/08/2022.  
Entered by: Nishikino, Keiji.

 _Test trials complete. The "Edenra" gene has safely been implemented in the test subjects and all trials are proceeding as planned. Subjects already beginning to show signs of increased stamina and physical strength. Some decrease in mental function noted, will continue to monitor. The success of these trials will be the first step into creating humanity's first super-soldiers._

* * *

 _Tokyo District – May 2030_

Eli checked her watch for what had to be the fifth time in so many minutes. Technically, there was no need for her to do so, as she had already set an alarm on her cellphone that would ring in exactly one minute and thirteen seconds, but she felt unnaturally nervous about the job she had that evening, and her habit of obsessively checking for time was one she hadn't found a good reason to break, especially when there was a bundle of nerves currently gathered somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach.

The neckline of her turtleneck tank top felt unusually tight and she resisted the urge to scratch it. It was funny because this was her preferred method of dress and usually one she felt comfortable in, especially for the kind of job she usually did. But tonight, the woolly material felt scratchy and was not aided in any way by the sense of unease that was currently prickling against her skin. She shook her head, pushing back blonde strands of hair and tucking it behind her ear.

Forty-seven seconds.

Concluding that it wouldn't hurt anyone if she left early, Eli made her way towards the door, her heeled boots making some noise against the floorboards. Neither of her roommates were home tonight though, and she paused only to grab her gloves off a hook near the doorframe and sticking them in her belt before locking the door behind her.

Fifteen seconds.

Eli decided to do herself a favour and turn off the alarm on her phone. As meticulous as she was, _especially_ about time, when her effectiveness at her job was counted and measured in seconds and milliseconds, she preferred that she didn't alert everyone else who resided at the large university campus that she was leaving.

The warm May evening smacked her in the face as she descended the stairs behind the university hospital's residence and the smell of some sort of flower hung heavily in the air. She wrinkled her nose: Eli didn't particularly like flowers or the darkness. But her usual sort of clientele liked to function in the evening—and if she was honest, she could hardly blame them. _But I suppose this is what I get for doing what I do._

Tonight's client, though, intrigued her. Eli didn't advertise her career in the papers nor did she send her resume to anyone: her reputation spoke for itself. She was used to being reached by phone only—not that she gave out her number lightly. But people who were genuinely interested in her services knew where to find her… or at least who to call. If any of them had dubious origins, she wasn't obligated in any way to accept their offer—if they were pushy, well, she could always call Umi if they got too out of hand. Staring down the cold amber gaze of the bounty hunter tended to be a rather sobering experience for most people.

But the man that had spoken to her the previous day didn't sound like her usual type of client. Eli was used to working for businessmen, weapons dealers and the occasional bounty hunter or private mercenary force, but she had done her research into the origin of the number that had called her and she had been _quite_ interested in why the government had seen fit to finally call her. If truth was told, she had been tempted to turn down the offer, but her curiousity had gotten the better of her—at least, that was what she told herself to avoid sounding desperate—especially when she'd heard the second half of his deal. She was beginning to regret that decision, but it was too late to back out now.

The usual security guard stationed at the entrance of the campus gates gave her a wave as she slipped through the pedestrian gate. The streets outside were deserted at the time, which lent some sense of calm into her.

She checked her phone one more time to make sure that she had the right address, even though she had already committed it to memory. The building the man had told her to go to was right in the heart of downtown Tokyo, although that had just made her more wary instead of assuaging any concerns she might've had. _If he's working for the District, why would he need to see me at an office building instead of at the District Building?_

That was only part of the source of her unease.

The other had to do with what had popped up on the news a few days prior: a man had been killed in broad daylight near the biggest scramble intersection that still remained part of Tokyo. No one had seen the sniper that had shot him, and authorities were still investigating his death, because as far as they were aware, the man had been jobless and was on the point of being evicted from his apartment—in other words, a nobody.

Of course, that had been the official story, and of course, Eli hadn't bought it. It didn't take her long to find out that the man had worked for one of the biggest private military corporations of the Tokyo District, Fudo Future Corporation, as an "information specialist". The title didn't mislead her for a single heartbeat: she knew exactly what he did and who he worked for, and she could think of several different reasons why he might've been at the top of someone's hit list.

Eli played with the earring that dangled off her right ear as she walked; even now, careful as she made her way into the busy centre of the Tokyo District. It wasn't uncommon to stumble across a drunk—or rather, it wasn't uncommon for a drunk to stumble into _her_ —and alcoholics were the last kind of people she wanted to deal with tonight. The man over the line had been purposefully vague about the details of what _exactly_ he wanted, although he had taken special care to assure her that she would be placed at the top of a security list should she accept. She had also noted that he sounded a little desperate. Desperate people, from her experience, were more disposed to being a little more genuine than the people who promised her things they had no capacity to give. The familiar flutter of nervous butterflies awoke at the bottom of her esophagus, but she quashed it: the man on the other end of the line had sounded very much like he had an important job to complete that he couldn't find anyone else for.

Eli cracked her knuckles as she reached the office building in question. She tended to enjoy important jobs.

* * *

The lobby of the office building was well-lit, if deserted. A single receptionist sat behind a polished wooden desk, her light brown hair contrasting badly with the wooden wall behind her. She looked up from behind her glasses as Eli approached.

"You must be Ayase-san," the woman greeted. If it hadn't been for the silence otherwise, she might not have heard her. Briefly, Eli wondered why _anyone_ would hire the world's most shy secretary for their company, but she pushed the thought aside: the government wasn't hers to run. "Please wait a moment while I call the chief."

Eli narrowed her eyes. Not only had their receptionist been briefed about her identity, it was clear they had already been waiting for her. _The chief?_ But the woman was already speaking into her phone, so she took a step back from the desk and waited, resisting the temptation to look at her watch.

The numbers of the elevator started to flicker, counting downwards floor by floor. When it reached the lobby, a single man stepped out, dressed in a dark grey suit and wearing dark glasses, even though it was already nighttime.

She watched as the man looked her over once before approaching her, noting that he was also wearing gloves. _The chief… of police or security?_

"Ayase Eli-san," the man said, extending a hand in greeting. She took it, meeting his gaze equally as he spoke, instantly recognizing his voice as that of the man who had been on the other end of the line the previous afternoon. She found a dark brown, serious gaze behind the glasses, but she let go extremely quickly: it was against her instincts to let herself relax around government officials or anyone who claimed to work for any sort of security company. "I'm Jun Kouchou," he introduced. "Would you step this way for the debrief?"

She looked at him intently underneath blonde bangs, slightly amused at his strange way of introducing himself, understanding that this was not a request, but a statement. She held his gaze for a few heartbeats longer before stepping into the elevator, crossing her arms as he pushed the button for the fourteenth floor: a seemingly random number in a building that had over forty.

The hallway lights flickered on as they exited onto the landing. The man walked in front of her, opening a door directly next to the elevators. He made a gesture for her to enter first.

Eli was briefly reassured by the weight of the trench knife she kept hidden on the inside of her boot. If Kouchou planned to attack her, he would be in for a surprise—living with a certain Sonoda Umi had its perks: one of them was that the bounty hunter had made absolute sure that she knew how to defend herself. She had been forced to use that particular knife on more than one occasion, and she sincerely hoped that Kouchou, whomever he actually worked for, had done _his_ research.

But the room he had shown her into was empty, save for a large conference table surrounded by chairs. The blinds were pulled, but a fairly sizable amount of light from the street below filtered in through the gaps in the plastic.

She took a seat opposite him, one arm resting on the table, wondering whether she should open her mouth first or wait for him to speak.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions about why we called you, Ayase-san. The long and short of it is, we needed someone with your type of expertise on a short notice."

Furrowing her brows, she rested the back of her hand against the side of her chin. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the incident at the scramble a few days ago, would it?" She watched him carefully as he paused.

"I see you've done your research. Then, I presume, you know that I work for the District?"

She didn't reply, simply waiting for him to continue. To his credit, Kouchou didn't seem fazed whatsoever about her lack of a response.

"Then I'll elaborate. I work for information security for the Toujou family. We're... concerned about a recent development in the Osaka District. Toujou-sama has a meeting with the district head of Osaka tonight. We'd like you to investigate the meeting site he's chosen, who he's with, and what corporations he's been dealing with."

She felt her heart rate skip a beat or two. There was not a single citizen in the Tokyo District who hadn't heard of the name "Toujou"—they were the current ruling family of the district, although the senior Toujou had died a few years back, leaving his only daughter to inherit his position. She was young—around Eli's own age—and there was still a lot of dissent as to whether she was actually competent enough to rule the district. Her current agenda included legalizing the rights of those who lived in the outskirts of Tokyo who had been affected by the Edenra virus, which had led to a fair amount of opposition from the citizens and politicians alike.

Eli was silent for a few moments. "Just to clarify," she reiterated. "You'd like me to be there at the District meeting tonight to find all this out?"

"That's correct," Kouchou replied.

She sat back an inch or two on the chair. "I don't work for someone without context," she said. "I'm sure you know of—or employ—a lot of people who do what I do. Why would you trust this kind of information to an outsider?"

Kouchou finally decided to look at her in the eye. "I assure you, Ayase-san, we wouldn't be hiring anyone from the outside if we didn't suspect that there are a few leaks, if you catch my drift, from the insider network. We decided it was safer to hire someone who has no political ties to either district. Your reputation," he added, "precedes you."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You're not concerned if I take this information to Osaka tomorrow morning?"

A muscle in his jaw jumped. Eli didn't back down, however, from the expression in his dark eyes; she had long since learned that the quickest way to someone's real intentions was to piss them off. "I think you'll find that that would be rather difficult for you to do," he replied, losing some of the smoothness in his tone.

A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. "I'm sure," she said. "I'm not interested in taking any of this to Osaka, but what kind of leaks are we talking about?"

Kouchou glanced both ways, as though he was afraid there would be cameras recording the sound of his voice in the room, though Eli had no doubt that the particular room they were in at the moment had been swept numerous times before she'd even walked through the door. "We suspect he's been funding some of the recent Ceresis attacks. As you know, the Edenra virus was produced by a physician eight years ago in the Tokyo District with funding from the government then to initiate a super soldier program."

Eli didn't need his history lesson to know what he was talking about. The Edenra virus had begun as a medical program, supposedly for a new brand of steroids that would make a soldier or athlete faster, stronger, and better than their counterparts. What its creators hadn't accounted for, however, was the effect of the serum on its subject's brain tissue—very quickly, it robbed its victim of anything more than a basic control over his or her motor functions. The steroidal effects turned its victims into twisted abominations that vaguely resembled various animals: the result of recombinant DNA engineering gone wrong.

The Edenra virus had been unleashed one day into the heart of downtown Tokyo when one of its victims had escaped from the university laboratory. Very quickly, it was discovered that the virus in the serum the physicians had used to help administer the steroid had the capability to be spread human to human by bodily fluids. The virus had devastated Tokyo—and its surrounding countryside—within days.

Edenra overrode human DNA in a rapid advance of metabolism: the constant within the variable. The variable itself was the time this needed to happen in—from the time of injection, a victim's human lifespan was measured anywhere from seconds to years. The fully transformed victims of the Edenra virus, who resembled nothing more than twisted forms that only vaguely resembled humans with dark, burnt skin, were christened the "Ceresis". Its only redeeming factor was that because of the sped-up metabolism that the virus produced, its victims' lifespans were short—relatively. After enclosing Tokyo and establishing boundaries of what remained of the cities, the first "natural" deaths of the virus's victims began to be reported within a few years.

Eli resisted the temptation to cross her arms. "I know the history of the Edenra virus," she said slowly. "What does that have to do with the ruler of the Osaka region?"

Kouchou gave her a grim smile. "That's what we'd like you to find out." Standing, he looked at his watch. "It's almost time for the meeting."

She stood too. "I haven't said I would do it. So far, you've only told me how _I_ can help _you_. I haven't heard anything about how all this benefits me. In fact, I think antagonizing the ruler of the Osaka District paints a rather big target on my back, don't you think?"

He turned to face her fully. "I know you're not interested in money. I assure you that the utmost precautions will be made to preserve your anonymity. Special consideration will also be provided for your personal safety—a courtesy we're willing to extend to both Sonoda Umi and Nishikino Maki. The incident at the scramble, while outside of our jurisdiction, will not be repeated." He paused for a moment. "But you seemed rather interested in the information we had to offer you yesterday, did you not? Information you can't access yourself, that is."

Eli felt the fingers of her right hand clench into a fist, icy stillness settling over her limbs as she breathed in. There were few things that remained in this world that she was prepared to risk her life for, and the information the district had—information that she couldn't access without help—was one of them.

She gave him a curt nod, and Kouchou nodded back, before opening the door for her. He seemed to have relaxed, now that she'd actually agreed to take the job. "We picked this building because of security concerns with the district building," he told her as he pushed the button for the elevator.

The ride up to the top floor of the office building was silent. Eli had the prickling sensation that Kouchou was still trying to size her up, but she refused to give him any food for thought. Arms crossed over her chest, she stared at the dark wall opposite that of the window, thoughts sprinting at a million miles per hour. _The district thinks they've been compromised. Osaka's funding the Ceresis attacks._ The Tokyo that had risen from the aftermath of the Edenra virus was a new one, but it was one mostly founded on security, especially after the rise in private military corporations and the popularity of Ceresis bounty hunters. There were the inevitable concerns that the Ceresis could devastate the area again, but for the most part, Tokyo's citizens lived in relative harmony. _Just what the hell is going on here?_

The _ding_ of the elevator disrupted her thoughts. Stepping out, she noted that they were on a floor with no doors lining the walls except for one at the very end of the hallway. Several more security guards stood just outside the door in question, as she and Kouchou approached.

"If you have any personal weapons, I'm going to have to ask you to hand them over now," one of them said gruffly to her.

Eli scowled at him, not willing to relinquish her only method of self-defence.

"I assure you that you will not come under any attack while you are in this room," Kouchou said beside her. "Anything you give up now will be promptly returned to you at the end of the meeting."

She pressed the trench knife into the man's hands, but not before giving him an ice-blue glare as he patted her down one more time, but finding only a small portable OSD. Not only was it not sufficiently large enough to be considered a weapon by any stretch, her job would be considerably more difficult if he deemed it unsafe for her to have. _While that doesn't inconvenience me in any way, his superiors might feel a little differently about that._ After inspecting it for a few moments, the guard gave it back to her.

Kouchou opened the door for her, and Eli stepped into a darker room, its blinds also pulled over the windows. This time, no light from the street below peeked through its gaps, and armed soldiers lined the walls, making the room seem much smaller than it actually was.

Surrounding a central table were senators she recognized from television, all of their chairs facing a large video screen mounted on the opposite wall. One or two of them gave her a glance as Kouchou led her past them, but they didn't seem interested in her presence.

It was only when they reached the very back corner of the room that Eli couldn't stifle a gasp, and she quickly moved her hand to cover her mouth. There, standing in the corner, speaking to yet another senator, was none other than the ruler of the Tokyo District.

Toujou Nozomi was famous for having inherited the position after her ailing father—a prominent Tokyo politician in his prime—had died, at the tender age of twenty-one, only four years after the Edenra virus had devastated the world. Whatever the media had to say about her and her "unusual" pursuit of political policies, Eli couldn't deny that whenever the young woman appeared on television for any reason, she carried a certain air of charisma with her, and she seemed unusually adept at convincing politicians and businessmen alike that her policies were the right ones. Eli was certain that that ability—along with the necessary smarts to avoid being assassinated—was one of the only things that allowed her to keep her position.

Tonight, she was dressed as she always was when she appeared for televised events: a floor-length mauve gown complete with a hat adorned in feathers and flowers, and her long plum-coloured hair in a braid carefully arranged on her left shoulder.

She turned away from the senator as they approached, a smile spreading on her face. "Ah, Kouchou-san. She came," she observed. Kouchou bowed as he stopped in front of her. Eli took the cue to do the same, aware that even if she didn't think as highly of the woman as she probably should have, she was still in the presence of the most powerful person in the Tokyo District.

"She did," he replied. Eli noted that he shifted his weight from foot to foot: he looked slightly uncomfortable with this particular observation.

"You were convinced she would not," Toujou murmured, although an amused smile quirked at the corner of her lips.

"I… miscalculated the situation," he admitted, eyes fixated on the wine-red carpet.

"No," Toujou corrected. She turned her emerald gaze to Eli, holding her gaze with an intensity that she was not prepared for. "I think you miscalculated her." She extended a gloved hand. "Ayase Eli-san," she greeted. "Thank you for accepting."

Eli took her hand, surprised by its warmth. She struggled for a moment to figure out what to say—there was a piercing quality to Toujou's verdant gaze that seemed to render her usual way of dealing with strangers redundant before she even tried. It was uncomfortable: it was as though the young woman in front of her could peel away the walls she'd spent years building around herself within seconds.

But before something coherent could make its way out of her mouth, another security guard tapped Kouchou on the shoulder—Eli guessed that it was because he was afraid to touch Toujou directly. "The meeting's about to start, Toujou-sama."

"Of course," she replied. She turned to give Eli a small half-smile. "We can speak later, Ayase-san. It's a pleasure to meet you in person." There was a trace of authenticity to her words as she turned away to sit at the head of the large table in the centre of the conference room.

As Kouchou led her to a spot hidden away from the large video screen, Eli wondered whether that small hint of emotion in her tone was genuine or if it was merely the product of being raised and trained to speak to politicians that way on a daily basis.

The computer in front of her was already on. "You'll have access to the server that we're hosting the video conference on," Kouchou said. "Do you need anything else?"

Eli pulled out the OSD from her pocket and pulled on her gloves, wriggling her fingers in the cloth until they fit. She plugged the miniature device into the computer and waited for it to register. Whatever else she felt about the situation at hand—the deep rooted awe at the heart of her unease—seemed to disappear. This was her element: what she did best.

"No," she replied.

"Osaka will be live in five," someone said behind her. The soft buzz of conversation between the senators seemed to dim, but she wasn't focussing on their conversations anymore. From where she was sitting, she couldn't see the video conference screen at all, hidden behind a large selection of cables, wires, and several soldiers.

She booted up several programs she'd written already on her OSD. Each server was different, of course, but shortcuts she'd already made for herself were always a plus.

The screen crackled to life, filling the previously-dark room with a luminescent glow. From the corner of her eye, Eli saw Toujou stand, along with the rest of her senators and advisors.

"Evening, Toujou-sama." An oily sort of voice seemed to emanate from the speakers. "Rather late to be holding this important conference, don't you think?"

Tenjoin Ryosuke was the leader of the Osaka District. Previously a businessman who owned a large corporation manufacturing weapons, he'd quickly seized power when his armaments sold in droves after the initial Ceresis attacks. Eli was pretty sure he felt no actual obligation to provide adequately for the citizens of his district, but like all politicians who had gained the limelight after a successful business venture, he only played the part because he liked the power.

But if Toujou was fazed by his feigned annoyance, she didn't show it. "We've already discussed the reason for the timing of this call, Tenjoin-sama," she replied evenly.

Eli's fingers were already on the keyboard. The server that hosted this particular video conference was no doubt private—but everything was relative. If Tenjoin was half as smart as the businessman she expected him to be, she had no doubts that he would be keeping an eye on anyone trying to access his end of the server by using the conference itself.

Piggybacking off the network function itself, it didn't take her long to discover the internal address he was using. From there, it was a short hop onto the network on his end. She had discovered a myriad of other interesting factors in the process, but Eli was quite sure that if someone had noticed her presence, she would've been booted off already. _At least, that's what I would do if I was him._

She cracked his firewall within thirty seconds, giving herself five minutes before one of his tech specialists noticed that that particular firewall was gone. The password for the circuit to his security cameras was similarly dispatched, and images from his security feed began to pop up on her screen. She scanned them quickly, looking through the hundreds of small cameras Tenjoin had installed in his government office building.

Finally spotting the one for his conference room, she did her best to get a shot of the clearest picture before logging out of his security system. She ran a program to enhance and enlarge the image she'd gotten before saving it. Eli noted, with a small degree of satisfaction, that the action had taken her less than a minute. From the way the man was still droning on in the vid screen above her head, neither he nor his tech team had noticed her momentary presence.

 _Moving on to the next item on the hit list…_

She didn't think Tenjoin was stupid enough to bring all of his private business files with him to the conference meeting. Still, it couldn't hurt to check. Toujou probably could recognize all the men in the still of the video feed she'd gotten, but just in case…

Eli scanned his security protocol, but nothing popped up—at least for the conference room. She narrowed her eyes. She could, of course, hop back into his security system, but she didn't have the leisure of time to rewatch all his security tapes for some hint of an answer. She gnawed the back of the knuckles on her right hand, trying to think.

A bright light on the image she'd taken caught her eye. A laptop, partially hidden by a large man at the back of the picture. It wasn't much to go on—for all she knew it could be the laptop where Tenjoin played video games on—but it was something. _Let's hope he's connected it to the same server as the rest of his building._ Using the same address as his video conference to hide her presence in his network, she found the identification for his laptop almost immediately. Unfortunately, in the background, she could hear Toujou wrapping up the meeting—she wouldn't be able to get very far into his files at this rate. Silently, she prayed that Toujou had the brains to keep the meeting going as long as possible, but it would be unsafe for her to stay much longer without detection.

Eli was able to nab a quick shot of the titles of his files before she had to log herself out. There was no need to enhance the letters on the screen, but as she scanned the names, Eli realized that she had no idea what the file folders meant. They were titled seemingly random names; she spotted the words _Scarlet Snow_ and _Red Fog_.

But even if they were meaningless to her, she had no doubt that they held a completely different meaning to her current head of state. As the video screen shut off, she heard someone approach her.

"Well?" Kouchou asked without any form of preamble.

She handed him the printout of the two images without giving him the benefit of a response.

He scanned them over quickly—more than once, she noted. Eli was so absorbed in reading his body language that she didn't hear Toujou approach.

"Did she get them?" The question was gentle, unobtrusive, yet knowing in some secretive manner: exactly the way Toujou usually presented herself in press conferences.

Kouchou handed her the files wordlessly. Eli watched Toujou's facial expression closely—the small smile she usually wore whether she was speaking slowly turned serious. There was that same intensity in her green eyes that she'd regarded Eli with earlier as she looked them over. Eli noticed the fingers of her left hand clench ever so slightly around the paper as Toujou turned to face her.

"Thank you," she started. "This… this is exactly what we needed."

Eli tried to read the emotions in her gaze, but it was impossible. "About what you wanted," Toujou continued, in a soft murmur. "I can't give you what you want right now, Ayase-san. It will take me some time to find and access the information we promised you. But it will happen—within a week. Kouchou will call you when it's ready. I hope that's acceptable to you?"

Eli very much wanted to tell her that it wasn't, but she was aware of who she was in the presence of, and who she was speaking to. She had absolutely no desire to get charged and arrested for something that had spiralled out of her control the moment she'd walked in through the doors.

"Fine."

Remembering to snag her trench knife from the security guard by the door as she left, she cast one last glance back into the conference room. Toujou was huddled with a knot of her advisors and politicians, no doubt poring over the information she'd just gotten. Eli grit her teeth. O _f course. This is exactly why they hired me—because none of the information that I got means anything to me. I wouldn't be able to tell anyone anything because I know next to nothing about all of this._ Eli didn't deal with politicians—mainly because politicians usually considered themselves above the line of work she did. Businessmen were a different matter, but she didn't recognize any of the men in the image. Of course, she could spend time searching through her own personal files for them, but like the information Toujou had promised her, she wouldn't be able to access a whole lot of it without the police coming after her.

Striding out the front door of the office building, she barely acknowledged the farewell that Toujou's secretary gave her. The milky streaks of dawn present in the indigo sky surprised her—had it really been that long?

Eli decided to take a walk. She wasn't a fan of downtown Tokyo and never would be, but she had no particular destination in mind that morning. She checked her watch: 0553. Maki had probably forgotten her keys to their apartment again, but she could sleep in her research laboratory if she'd finished with her latest autopsy early.

Without her being aware of it, Eli found herself at the broken piers that lined Tokyo Bay. The bridges that had once spanned across the water were now broken, and the outskirts of the Tokyo District lay beyond that. Far at the edge of her vision, she could see the neat lines of the long, guarded walled fence that kept the Ceresis at bay.

A chill dawn breeze had picked up, but strangely, she wasn't cold as she stared out across the choppy waters.

 _Where are you?_

* * *

 _"Namidite._

 _That was the name of the metal that finally repelled the Ceresis. It has no effect on healthy humans not infected with the Edenra virus. However, it reacts almost instantaneously with the rapid metabolism of the Ceresis, melting what remains of their limbs and leaving them as easy targets for the bounty hunters that sprung up in and around Tokyo._

 _Namidite received its name because it was first discovered off the shores of Japan. What remains of civilization is only possible because large, walled fences made of Namidite were constructed around the major metropolitan areas that are still standing. It is guarded day and night by bounty hunters and private military corporations who frequently go beyond the fence, as well as the national army. The area of these fences were originally calculated by how feasible the walls were to patrol and maintain, although in recent years, expansion beyond the original perimeters has begun._

 _But whether these walls we've built are meant to keep the Ceresis out, or to keep humanity bottled in tiny areas because we're too afraid to step outside again, I don't know." —Ayase Eli_

* * *

The Ceresis were inspired by the _Twisted_ from _Parasite Eve/The Third Birthday_.

*OSD = Optical Storage Device, a small portable data storage unit, often used to transfer data between computers. (Borrowed from the _Mass Effect_ universe since I figured we were going to be slightly futuristic here)

I also probably butchered some science along the way, but I promise I totally studied for all of my pathophysiology exams. I just don't remember anything. :')


	2. Maze

I discovered that Umi-chan is actually pretty hard to write lol - her habit of speaking formally made things a little more difficult for me and I had to keep rewriting her lines. ._. (Umi pls)

For the rest of this fic, I'll make a note at the beginning if a specific song was both my jam for a chapter as well as the title inspiration for the chapter in question.

 **Chapter Title:** Meiro (迷路 lit. _Maze_ ) - Kurono Kiria (CV Nanjou Yoshino)

I may or may not be attempting to turn everyone into Jolno fans. But I promise this song is really good _and_ she uses her Eli voice to sing it.

* * *

" _Family is not defined by 'yours' or 'mine', but by_ ours _. And in this world, more often than not, family means not the people who raised you, but the people you have fought with—a decision not made by blood and accidents, but by choice and responsibility._

 _I didn't know either Maki or Eli before the first Ceresis attacks. But in the days that followed, a bond began to form, first out of our mutual determination to survive, as we locked ourselves in a small clubroom at the high school we all attended. Maki, to the best of her knowledge, tried to mend our bruises and wounds, and it was Eli who had finally figured out how to get the computer in the room working to call for help, while I did the best I could to keep us alive on the intermittent tap water and scarce food supply that was the only thing available to us._

 _We stumbled out onto the ruined streets of Tokyo in a daze. In our effort to find our families, none of us could bear to go alone. At my family's home, there were only flames. At Eli's, we found only the still-breathing form of her younger sister._

 _But it was Maki who truly had it the worst of any of us. When she reached her family mansion, we could hear maniacal laughter coming from within. When we went inside, the broken, silhouetted form of her father greeted us. The words he was saying—none of us wanted to believe what he said was true. It made me sick to realize that he meant every word. When he finally recognized Maki, he tried to kill us all to silence what we had just heard. If the army hadn't shown up when they did, I'm quite certain that none of us would still be alive._

 _Bleeding, crying, and on our knees, the three of us huddled in the foyer of her family home for what felt like years. But it was then that we swore a wordless oath—it is that kind of trauma that forms a bond that cannot be dissolved or left behind. Even though none of us had families anymore, it was at that moment that we made each other our family." —Sonoda Umi_

* * *

Umi liked to arrange her days in some semblance of a routine, even though the Ceresis didn't function that way at all. Nonetheless, she was determined to make it happen… one of these days.

Unfortunately for her, her usual morning routine involved "jumping the fence", as it was called, and striding out into the untamed forest that had crept up to reclaim what had once been part of Tokyo. Most people were usually frightened by the occasional screech of a Ceresis, but Umi wasn't most people.

Instead of filling her with fear, the sight of her family home in flames—with none of her family members to be found—had instilled an icy rage in her, a burning desire to see every last Ceresis dead. It was that determination that had driven her forward all these years since, because at the time, she'd had nothing left to fight for. And the only thing Umi had known how to do was fight. She was equally as determined not to let her new family suffer the same fate.

Neither Maki nor Eli had tried to stop her when Umi threw herself into her archery training. That was perhaps what she valued the most about her new family: it was that they both understood her feelings almost as intimately as she did. She remembered the drive they'd all had—the sleepless nights that slipped into restless days before edging into night again in a vicious cycle—the constant reminder that they were still alive.

Senses on ever-vigilant alert, she crept through the undergrowth, wincing when she heard a loud _boom_ in the distance. _No doubt it's one of those private military groups again._ The sound was sure to attract almost all the Ceresis in the area, and Umi fervently hoped that they knew what they were getting themselves into. Then again, she didn't particularly care if some careless mercenaries got themselves killed—stupidity didn't need to breed and Umi was most certainly _not_ a fan of most mercenaries, despite being a bounty hunter herself.

There was a certain degree of irony there, but at least she worked for herself and maintained a set of standards for herself. Most mercenaries strutted around Tokyo like they owned the place, brandishing their weapons after hours and getting drunk on the streets. It was the precise level of shamelessness that made her bristle.

But since the government had rewritten certain aspects of the law since the original Ceresis attacks, it didn't make what they did illegal… unfortunately. Umi supposed neither what she nor Eli did would be considered legal either prior to that law change, but at least the two of them had morals.

The rustle of dead leaves just ahead of her caught her attention, as she spotted movement in the bushes ahead. In the morning light, she spied the tell-tale motions of a Ceresis stumbling through the undergrowth, waving its mutated single arm in the air as it sliced bushes and trees out of the way. Reassured by the weight of the bow in her arms, she raised it.

The namidite-tipped arrow sunk into the side of the Ceresis's head, dropping it like a rock. Umi waited a few seconds to make sure it was dead before striding up to it; she had made that particular mistake in the past and had almost paid dearly for it. If anything, the earful she'd gotten from Maki afterwards made it not worth going through again.

Black market dealers paid a high price for Ceresis parts. Intact ones, that was. Most bounty hunters and mercs liked to make a mess while killing Ceresis, but Umi prided herself on the precision in her aim. She had found that if she shot the Ceresis in the head above a certain point, the namidite's corrosive powers usually left the arms of the Ceresis relatively intact. Certain religious sects believed that the Ceresis had been sent from some higher power—that the devastation of humanity was inevitable. Umi didn't believe in that for a single heartbeat—a God that couldn't protect those who had done absolutely nothing wrong was no better than no God at all—but she knew better than to spout her views in public.

Umi unsheathed her knife, taking special care to put on some heavy-duty gloves before she did so. She knew of a certain dealer who paid a premium for Ceresis claws; while she maintained her personal set of morals while bounty hunting, she wasn't above saying no to free cash.

Carefully removing the large claw from the body of the Ceresis and stowing it in a bag that ensured the Ceresis fluids wouldn't leak out, she muttered a quiet prayer for the soul that the Ceresis had once had. _May you rest in peace._

Throwing the bag over her shoulder, satisfied that this particular hunt had gone so well, she set off back towards the walled fence.

More people would have the courage to be bounty hunters if it weren't for the fact that bounty hunters always worked alone. Umi _despised_ private military companies because of the corrupt businessmen that inevitably seemed to own them, and she mistrusted the government almost as much as she hated dishonest corporations, so joining the army was out of the question for her as well, even though all of those options had presented her with an opportunity to exterminate Ceresis.

But being alone suited her just fine. Her archery skills had always been something she'd worked hard to hone, even before the initial Ceresis attacks, and bounty hunting was an outlet that she could put them to use in. Besides, Umi found that hunting partners tended to slow her down.

Passing through the guarded gate of the walled fence, she made her way towards the myriad of ragtag shops that had popped up along the inner boundary of the fence, all pandering towards mercenaries and bounty hunters.

Outside of the well-off areas of the Tokyo District lay the outskirts that bordered the main city that had never been rebuilt unlike central Tokyo. Certain less affluent citizens lived in these outskirts for the non-existent rent in the run-down buildings, but it was mainly inhabited by those who had already been infected by the Edenra virus, but had not turned into Ceresis yet. Because the speed of the viral infection differed between different people, some of the people had been living this way for years, waiting—some with despair, others with anger—for the inevitable end that would come for them eventually.

Tokyo was not a kind place to Edenra victims in general. Virtually all job openings, apartment vacancies, and even schools required a viral exam. Companies did not hire those who had been infected. Even if an afflicted citizen had the money to pay for a residence, they would be turned down by owners. Most, if not all of them, didn't have that kind of money, though, and there was only one place to go on the inside of the fence if you had absolutely nothing to your name.

Because non-infected, relatively well-off citizens didn't pass this way unless they had a _very_ good reason to, there was an almost zero chance of infection from one of the Edenra victims as most of the infected citizens were too afraid to approach private military groups or bounty hunters; nearly all of the latter had absolutely no qualms about putting a bullet or arrow in someone they deemed a threat. Instead, most of the Edenra victims scraped out a meager living in the ruins of what used to part of Tokyo in decrepit apartments with no electricity or running water, or had built shacks and makeshift homes out of the ample construction material left lying around in the wake of ruined buildings.

Umi made her way into one of the shops that had been set up along the edge of the fence. It was a little ways away from the gate and involved a detour on her part, but she made an effort to remain on good terms with its owner, a former bounty hunter who still pulled out her weapons once in awhile when she felt bored.

Pushing aside the cloth flap at the entrance of the shop, she was greeted by a vibrant shock of orange hair.

Hoshizora Rin was the daughter of one of the most affluent weapons manufacturers in Tokyo. She had been a star track and field runner in high school, and had put that athletic ability to use in arms demonstrations for commercials for the family business. However, she had gotten bored of her role as a mere actress—much to her family's dismay—and had wanted to see action herself. It had been an easy transition for her to become a bounty hunter, but an accident four years ago had left a tendon in her ankle permanently torn, which made it unsafe for her to continue as one. Unfettered by this particular development, she opened up her own shop at the fence, using her knowledge of arms and her particular brand of enthusiasm to attract potential clients. While Umi had no idea who Rin sold the Ceresis parts she purchased often from bounty hunters to—she wasn't even sure if she _wanted_ to know—Rin did have a rather impressive selection of high quality weapons and never turned her down if she wanted a weapon of hers repaired. Besides, she could always count on Rin to buy her bounty prizes, even on a bad day.

"Umi-chan!" The greeting was as bright as ever as Rin put down one of her coveted pet cats in order to greet her at the glass countertop. Today, the selection underneath the transparent glass was a collection of namidite swords. "I see you have a prize for me!"

Umi dropped the bounty bag on the countertop with a loud _thump_.

Rin put on some gloves before she prised the bag open, grinning at the contents inside. "You never fail to disappoint me, do you, Umi-chan? Unfortunately I don't have anything you'd be interested in at the moment… unless you want to wait a few days for my next shipment? I'll make sure to save your usual for you."

Umi shrugged. "That's fine." Once upon a time, she would've been insistent on being paid right away—in cash. But money was no longer a concern for her—Eli seemed to attract rich businessmen and weapons dealers as clients like a magnet—and if truth was told, she _did_ appreciate the quality of Rin's goods. She could do without a few meals if it meant she could count one hundred percent on the weapons on her back in a fight.

Rin swept the bag off the countertop, carrying it into her backroom. As always, Umi winced a little seeing the still-present limp that the orange-haired young woman walked with. While waiting for Rin to come back, she examined the collection of weapons displayed on the walls: an assortment of bows, guns, and spears. Although Rin couldn't chase after shoplifters anymore, Umi had never seen someone land a throwing knife into a thief's back as fast as she did.

The scrape of a chair against concrete brought her attention back to the orange-haired woman in question. Resting her elbows on her counter, she turned on the small TV in the corner: Rin was one of the few people who lived in Tokyo's outskirts that had the money to pay for reliable electricity and cable.

"Hey Umi-chan, have you heard?"

Umi shot a side glance at the other woman, waiting for her to elaborate. There was no need to ask _what_ because Rin spoke at a pace that was faster than one of her cats chasing catnip. "They think they found the sniper that killed the man at the scramble a few days ago."

This was news to Umi. "Really."

Rin nodded enthusiastically. "It was on the news this morning. A surveillance vid in a nearby grocery store caught him on film."

Umi raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, Hoshizora. A high-profile sniper like that who assassinated someone in broad daylight was careless enough to get caught on video in a _grocery store_? Forgive me if I don't believe you." She tried not to sound too skeptical.

Rin pouted at her. "Nya don't have to believe me if you don't want to. But if you don't trust the news, who else are you gonna trust? And don't call me _Hoshizora_!" she added as an outraged afterthought as Umi turned to go. "I thought we were better friends than that, Umi-chan!"

Umi looked over her shoulder as she pushed aside the burlap curtain that served as a front door. "We are, but not when you believe everything you hear. Let me know when your next shipment comes in."

The news was still on her mind as she strode through the dusty streets of the outskirts, glad for the moment being that the collapsing buildings provided some form of shade against the rising sun. It was possible Rin knew more than she was letting on—the outskirts of Tokyo wasn't exactly the safest place to discuss national security—but since Rin lived there and she didn't, Umi felt a little safer voicing her dissent. But Umi did know someone who _would_ know. In fact, Umi was sure that that particular blonde _someone_ knew more about the incident in question than all of Tokyo's news outlets combined.

She had half a mind to pull out her phone and call Eli, but she resisted the temptation. Most Edenra-afflicted citizens gave bounty hunters a wide berth when one of them passed through the area, but she couldn't be a hundred percent sure that one of them wouldn't risk eavesdropping on one of her conversations.

Umi stopped at the usual make-shift bridge she used to cross back into Tokyo proper. A large man was blocking her way, his bleached blonde hair glinting in the morning sun with a large sword strapped to his back. She grit her teeth together in frustration. _Of all the days to run into_ him _…_

Satou Fubuki was also a bounty hunter, famous for the amount of Ceresis kills he had to date. His signature weapon was a large sword that was longer than his arm and about twice as wide, and he certainly wasn't afraid to use it. However, his morality could described at best as _dubious_ and Umi wouldn't have been surprised to hear if he was part of one of Tokyo's many gangs, amongst other things. He often laughed at her—mostly for being a woman—and Umi often described him as the bane of her existence.

"Morning, Sonoda," he drawled, leaning on one foot casually.

Umi didn't react, knowing that any reaction she gave to him would only give him fuel for the fire.

He smirked at her. "Back from hunting already? Or did you not find anything this morning?" There was a pause as his voice grew a shade more sinister. "Or maybe you've finally realized that nobody's playing little girl games out there?"

She tried to control her temper—letting Satou Fubuki get a rise out of her was the _last_ way she wanted to start her day. "I'm sure you have better things to do than standing at the bridge all day," she said evenly, trying not to let the irritation that was prickling at her skin show.

"Oh, I do," he replied. "Just thought I'd say hi to you. What… is that illegal now?"

"No. But I wish it was, because the Satou Fubuki I know doesn't just wait at a bridge to say hello."

 _That_ was enough to turn his arrogant smirk into a snarl. "You here to pick a fight, Sonoda?"

"No," she snapped coldly. "I'm waiting for you to move out of my way so I can cross."

Satou let out a growl as she stepped past him, but he didn't try to stop her. Most of the time, Satou only made time in his day for Umi to give her crap. The other twenty-five percent of the time…

"Oi, Sonoda! When are you planning to ask Ayase to go out with me?" he called after her.

The shout echoed across the water as Umi left him behind, though it took a considerable amount of her self-control for her to ignore him.

 _As if Eli would even consider going out with a disgusting creep like you._

The man had met Eli _once_ —incidentally, it had been the time that she had severely underestimated the Ceresis's ability to survive being shot at with an arrow, and she had been recuperating in Rin's store with the young woman fussing over her, cursing under her breath at her own stupidity. Eli and Maki had come looking for her when she hadn't answered their calls on her barely-functioning cellphone, and had the utter misfortune to run into him on the way. Unfortunately, she hadn't been there to warn them not to give him the light of day. According to Maki, it had taken almost all of her energy to stop Eli from making an attempt to kill the man on the spot.

The memory of the incident made Umi _almost_ wish that murder wasn't illegal in Tokyo. While bounty hunters and ordinary citizens alike had been granted the right to carry a weapon at all times in case of a Ceresis attack, it was against the law to use them on a fellow non-infected human. _But for people like this…_

As she climbed up from the waterfront onto the main streets of Tokyo, her phone buzzed, distracting her from her dark thoughts. She pulled it out to look at the message, then smiled.

Umi had a grand total of four contacts on her phone. One and two were Maki and Eli. Three was Rin. Four was one of the only good things to come as a result of the Ceresis attacks, a single point of light in an otherwise dark world.

She had met Minami Kotori on the streets of Tokyo one day not long after the initial Ceresis attacks; the young woman had been helping an injured girl on the streets. Behind her, unbeknownst to Kotori, a man was in the middle of his transition from a human to a Ceresis—a man she had just helped, not knowing his condition nor how fast he could turn.

Without thinking, Umi had drawn her bow and let the arrow fly. At the time, she didn't have access to namidite arrows, and it had taken her several seconds to realize the reason for the man's unexpected resilience. Quickly pushing aside Kotori and the young girl she had been helping, Umi had almost been injected with the virus herself as she drove an arrow point into the back of the infected man's neck, severing the brain stem.

 _That_ had caused him to stop moving as they slowly backed away from him, before the army had swooped in onto the scene.

At the time, Umi had no idea how important Kotori would become in her life.

She found out later that Kotori had been granted early admission into a famous school for the arts, and had been well on her way to becoming a fashion designer before the events of the Ceresis attacks in October 2022. After the devastation that had left only her and her mother as the sole survivors in their family, Kotori had dedicated her efforts into helping the victims of the catastrophe, and enrolled in nursing school.

Now, Kotori was a nurse at the same hospital in which Maki worked as a surgeon, but she had never forgotten the person who had saved her life. Kotori had invited her to a café as a way of thanking her, and the ball had started rolling from there down a very steep incline with no end to it in sight. Umi smiled at the memory of the brown haired young woman bursting into tears when she'd presented her with a ring.

As things were, Umi was also slightly terrified of the list of wedding preparations that Kotori's mother had come up with and had half a mind to elope if even a third of the suggestions on the list in question had any possibility of happening.

She texted Kotori back quickly, wishing her a good shift at the hospital before making her way home.

While the university campus that she lived on provided some degree of security to its residents, Umi would never be completely happy with it—but few things measured up to her rigid standards for security. She scowled a little at the friendly wave of the security guard at the gates who knew her by sight and didn't bother asking for her identification. _What if someone was impersonating me?_ she thought furiously.

Then something Kotori had said to her on one of her recent days off floated to the forefront of her mind. _You have to relax a little sometimes, Umi-chan._ Umi sighed—she could almost hear the gentle chastise in Kotori's voice. She was loathe to admit that Eli and Maki were right about one thing in particular—that Kotori had been the one positive influence to actually have an effect on her in the aftermath of Tokyo's destruction. She had been so full of fire and self-righteous fury that it had blinded her to almost everything else, and Kotori had been the one to change that.

She heard a colourful selection of swear words before she even reached the basement laboratory. Allowing herself a small, amused smile, Umi typed in her identification and waited for the security system by the door to retina scan her and identify her thumbprint before she walked through it.

Maki was sitting on her favourite revolving chair, waving a fork in the air. What was speared on the fork, Umi didn't want to know—it resembled a purple meatball and she wouldn't have been surprised if it was exactly that.

"Eli locked me out of the apartment again last night," the redhead fumed as she typed on her computer with one hand, still holding onto the fork with the other.

Umi set her bow down on a stainless steel operating table Maki wasn't using. "You mean, you left your keys on the table again."

"Shut up," Maki mumbled through a mouthful of her food. "My autopsy ended early."

"Is that why you're eating an eggplant meatball?" Umi deadpanned at her.

Maki gave her an amethyst glare. "No. Why do I put up with you again?" she asked.

Umi pretended not to hear her, before checking the time on her phone again. "You know, she's probably home by now if you want to go back."

The redhead shook her head as she continued to chew. "We got the body of the guy who was killed at the scramble today from the police department, and they want an autopsy before tomorrow morning so they have something to tell the media. One of the lab techs said it would be here in about half an hour."

Umi dropped off the rest of her things in a locker on the wall as Maki dipped her fork into the beaker that she was using as a bowl for her meal. "Speaking of the scramble incident," Maki continued, "you should probably check in with Eli about him."

"I probably should," she agreed.

Turning, she left Maki muttering darkly over the rest of her odd-looking meal about the demands of the university hospital when she had her research to complete.

The short walk from the basement laboratory to their apartment took less than five minutes. Even though she and each of her roommates could more than afford a generous apartment for themselves in relative luxury, they still chose to live together—part of it was due to sheer habit and the comfort that had been born of their earliest days after the Ceresis attacks. Umi had been just starting out as a bounty hunter then, and Maki was still in medical school, furiously burying herself in her textbooks. For awhile, the only source of income came from Eli, who had honed her hacking skills instead of practicing for ballet like her parents had wanted. Even after her sister's accident and the subsequent events that had followed, Eli had refused to entertain the notion that Umi and Maki owed her anything. _"We're a family,"_ she had insisted.

Umi had not been able to argue with that.

Even now, after her engagement with Kotori, she still considered the university campus her home. Occasionally, she stayed over at Kotori's to help her with her ailing mother, but the brown-haired young woman had never questioned Umi's choice of residence, knowing her past—it was just another one of the little things Umi appreciated about her.

Besides, Umi mused as she climbed the stairs to the apartment, the _location_ of their residence had never been an important factor. Ever since Maki had been granted the use of the basement laboratory, the three of them had moved anything of importance into the secured underground room. Even if an assailant after sensitive information gained access—by some miracle—to their apartment, he or she would find next to nothing of value in the apartment itself.

The door was unlocked as Umi turned the handle. When she poked her head inside, she spotted Eli sitting at the dining room table with her knees up in a black tank top pulled over skinny jeans, a mug of coffee next to her as she browsed something on her personal laptop. The blonde looked up as Umi let herself in. "Morning," she yawned.

Taking in Eli's appearance and the presence of caffeine—something she normally despised—Umi assumed that she had been up all night again. "Good morning to you too," Umi replied. "Did your job take all night?"

She took in Eli's long, calculated look. While their apartment was generally a safe—if such a word could still apply to anything in their world—place to talk, Umi interpreted her friend's expression to mean that she couldn't discuss it freely where they currently were.

She peered over the blonde's shoulder to look at what was on the laptop screen. Eli had minimized the news stream she was watching and had written something on her notepad app. Umi could feel her heart rate beginning to pound as she read through each line. She had to read it several times to process it completely, trying to internalize the feelings and the odd sense of foreboding that had awoken in her stomach, her original reason for coming to find Eli completely forgotten.

"You… are okay with this?" she asked in a low voice, unsure if it would carry.

The expression in Eli's blue eyes told her everything she needed to know, although Umi would've given almost anything for it not to be the case. "I have to be," was the reply.

The cellphone on the table buzzed as it rang. For a moment, Umi wondered if it was her phone, before she remembered it was in her pocket.

She watched Eli pick it up to look at the number on the screen, before her entire body language changed. Her left arm rigid, the blonde stared at it for a few more seconds before raising it to her ear.

"Who is it?" Umi mouthed at her.

But Eli wasn't paying attention to her as Umi tried to follow the one sided conversation.

"Speaking."

She recognized the tone as Eli's "business" voice, although she detected a small tremor in it. She briefly wondered if the person on the other end of the line was able to pick it up as well. Umi looked up sharply when she head a quiet gasp from Eli, but Eli was staring straight ahead at the screen of her laptop, though Umi very much doubted she was actually looking at anything on it.

"No… I have not." With one hand, Eli typed another message onto the notepad still open on the desktop screen.

Umi frowned, but followed the directions on it and reopened the news stream. Whatever had been broadcasting before on the news channel that Eli had been watching had been interrupted. An official-looking news reporter against a grey background had sidled into the centre of the screen and was reading off a piece of paper. She turned up the volume a little.

" _We have received an anonymous report this morning that the leader of the Kyoto District, Maeda Yuusuke, has gone missing. The security force of the Kyoto District has already been deployed, and the cabinet of Kyoto asks that all citizens remain calm at this point in time."_

She felt her blood run cold. Maeda Yuusuke was one of the few politicians to remain in office after the first Ceresis attacks. He was a progressive man, and if Umi had to pick a politician to like, it would be him. He advocated not for revenge against the Ceresis or rapid expansion, but the security of all the cities' borders before tackling the bigger national problem. A known environmentalist, he had garnered a fair amount of opposition for trying to equalize the incomes between Kyoto's rich and poor. _What… is going on?_

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that Eli's sudden motion to stand upright startled her. Watching her friend's body language carefully, Umi noted that she was playing with the earring on her right ear again—something she always did when she was trying to make a decision.

"I…"

Whoever Eli was speaking to, Umi did _not_ like at all. It was rare for her to show any sort of hesitation or uncertainty, _especially_ when speaking on the phone to a client, and that was the second time she'd done it in the same phone call. Anxiety—an emotion Umi rarely felt the need to address—was beginning to gnaw at her nerves and she wanted desperately for Eli to put whoever it was on speakers, but she was painfully aware of the fact that had it been safe to do so, the blonde would've done it already.

"Fine. I'll be there." Eli ended the phone call but didn't lower the hand that held the mobile device. Umi noticed that there was a slight tremble in the stiff way she was holding her phone.

Umi resisted the temptation to shake her by the shoulders.

"Who was that?" she hissed.

"That was…" Eli lowered her voice by several decibels and she had to take a step closer to her to hear the name. "Toujou herself."

Umi almost stumbled backwards in surprise before she steadied herself. _Toujou-sama?_ "What did she want?" She almost wanted to ask where Toujou had gotten Eli's personal phone number to begin with, before she remembered who they were talking about.

"She wants me to 'help' her until this crisis… whatever this is, is over," Eli hissed back.

She noticed the emphasis on the word _help_. "I don't understand," Umi said. "Why _you?_ Does she not have enough people working for her as it is?"

Eli narrowed her eyes. "Clearly, I did my job a little too well last night."

Umi tried to completely process the events of the last ten minutes within the space of several seconds, unease tugging at her nerves. During times like this, she completely trusted her gut instinct, and Umi did _not_ like what her intuition was telling her one bit. "Don't go," she insisted, taking a step towards Eli.

The blonde bit her lip as she stared at the opposite wall, but the emotion in her expression stopped Umi in her tracks. "She… promised me that she would provide all the necessary information and resources for a proper investigation."

 _Of course she did._ For a few seconds, she tried to come up with something to say that wouldn't come out the wrong way. Nothing came to mind. "Can you trust her?" she finally asked, voice subdued.

Eli finally looked at her, the indecision and pain in her eyes closing a fist around Umi's heart. "I don't know," she admitted. "But if there's even a chance that I can get something to work off of…" Her voice trailed off, and she held Umi's gaze for a few heartbeats longer before turning to go.

Umi watched Eli pull on her boots by the door. If it hadn't been for the fact that she knew her and knew what she was about to do, Eli might've looked like any other twenty-something year old young woman about to go out onto the streets of Tokyo.

She strode forward just as Eli was about to leave. Umi didn't often resort to physical touch as a way of conveying her feelings, but impulse drove her forwards as she gently gripped the blonde's shoulder. Eli did not turn around. "Be careful," she warned. She wanted to say more—her instinct for self-preservation screamed that this was a bad idea, but she knew anything she could've said to convey that particular meaning would be no less than an insult.

 _If you were in her position, you know you would do it too._

"I know," came the reply, before Eli was gone.

* * *

Note: Originally, Chapter Three was supposed to be Maki's segment but I looked at my plot-outline again and that particular plan may not work out the way I wanted it to, so the tomato might have to wait a bit for her moment. It'll happen though. Somewhere down the line.


	3. Inherited Duty

**Note:** I live in polar bear land and university was cancelled for a few days due to snow, so of course, instead of studying, I wrote this.

It's also ended up being super long because I said I wasn't going to do Maki's moment just yet but ended up doing most of it anyways because I'd already planned where in the plot this chapter was going to end (and didn't get to it, but that's ok); apparently Eli also needed her moment, so here we are. It's been fun - especially writing Maki because it's been awhile since I've done aggressive-type tsundere personalities with a load of sarcasm, so I hope you all enjoy surgeon!Maki.

* * *

" _My father created the Edenra virus._

 _There isn't any real point in denying it… and to be honest, why should I? I've spent so damn long trying to run away from it and it's never worked out for me. I spent my time in university being followed by whispers everywhere I went, and those sure as hell didn't stop even after I'd graduated and started working. In those years, there were only two people who didn't treat me like absolute crap because of who_ he _was._

 _But hell if I'm going to allow the rest of my life to be dictated by_ him _. If he created this, then I'm going to find the solution to this. It's taken me a long time to finally stop feeling haunted by his legacy, and it's about time that I created my own." —Nishikino Maki_

* * *

Maki stared stubbornly at the glowing screen of her laptop, as though it could offer her the answers to the questions she'd hastily scribbled on the inside ofher wrist while she'd been eating. Technically, it was a terrible habit, as Umi often mentioned, but unfortunately die-hard habits didn't just go away on their own. Besides, writing things on her wrist helped her remember things that she normally would've forgotten by the time she had an opportunity to think about them again. _So what if it's going to give me cancer?_

She had spent the last couple of hours in the university morgue, doing an autopsy on the man that had died at the scramble a few days ago. Upon initial assessment, she hadn't found anything to note. He had appeared to be relatively healthy, and sure, he had a few greying hairs on his head, but who didn't these days? Maki was convinced she would start sprouting some by the following week if the police department didn't stop piling autopsy after autopsy on her head.

When she had looked more closely, however, she noticed a few scars just beside the man's ears. While they could be passed off as normal scars, it was unlikely that he would have a bilateral set of straight, identical scars on his scalp. The only plausible answer to this particular conundrum was that he'd gotten a facelift. _But why?_ she had mused as she inspected the skin underneath his jaw, the other telltale site of plastic surgery. Sure enough, she had found a few scars there that were again too straight and too neat to be from wounds.

The next thing on her list had been the bullet wound in his chest, since she couldn't figure out why the man would've needed a facelift, especially given his true occupation—thanks to Eli—and the relatively new quality of his facial scars. Unfortunately, she wasn't a physicist, but Maki had seen enough murder victims and action movies to know that sniper rifles tended not to leave anything behind if they hit their target. The hole in his chest was big enough to put a large fruit in, and it was also the source of her current dilemma.

She examined the bullet in question—securely tucked away in an evidence bag—while she thought. One of her lab techs had already run some tests on it, but he'd been unable to find anything on it apart from the victim's blood. The only thing that was odd about it was that it had no identification. Weapons manufacturers, at least in Tokyo, were required to put an identifying serial number on all their weapons, including projectiles said weapons could fire. Not only did the bullet in question have none, but the make of the bullet was also off from current weapon standards, but she didn't know enough about weapons to know if it was sub-optimal or not. Maki was rather hoping Umi would be able to bring a particular blonde down to the lab—researching weapons and calculating force of impact wasn't one of her fortes, but she could probably bully Eli into doing it.

Probably. If Eli was in a good mood.

The sound of the lab door being unlocked behind her startled her a little, but Maki didn't feel the need to turn around: there were three people that the door allowed access into the lab to, and one of them was herself.

The single set of footsteps behind her was too quiet to be Eli, and Maki turned around with the full intent to berate Umi for not dragging Eli along with her until she caught the expression on Umi's face. She clamped her mouth shut before she even opened it—there were times to have a smart mouth around Umi and now certainly wasn't one of them.

She waited, mentally counting to five as Umi gingerly lowered herself into the other revolving chair in her lab. When she got to five, and Umi still hadn't said a word, she broke the silence. "What?"

Umi pulled her phone out of her pocket and put it on Maki's cluttered desk before taking a breath. "How much do you trust politicians, Maki?"

The question surprised her—not because it was unexpected, but because she knew Umi knew the answer to it: Maki trusted politicians about half as far as she could throw them.

She raised an eyebrow before raising a finger to twirl at a lock of red hair. "I don't," she replied. "Why?"

"Toujou-sama just manipulated Eli into helping her for God knows how long."

Maki stared at her blue-haired friend for a full ten seconds. She was on the brink of asking if Umi had finally mastered a poker face, but then she remembered that Umi didn't joke.

"Toujou? _Toujou_?" she spluttered. "As in, head of state, Toujou?"

Umi nodded.

Maki pushed her chair away from the table so fast that Umi started. "You're actually serious. No, wait. Scratch that. _Eli's_ actually serious about this. Did she leave already? Is she _stupid_?"

Umi hadn't moved from her chair, despite Maki's reaction. "Why didn't you stop her, Umi?" she demanded as she stood up, disbelief and anger coursing through her veins as she started to pace—her favourite method of dealing with stress.

"You know what she promised her, right?" Umi sounded resigned.

Maki didn't, but she could guess, especially from the emphasis Umi had placed on certain words in that particular sentence. _Of course._ "Damn it," she cursed. "Damn it, Eli! She puts on this frost queen impersonation until someone brings _that_ up, and then all of that goes out the window." _You… you sentimental idiot, Eli._

Umi had watched her outburst with furrowed brows, chin resting on her hands, clearly thinking hard. "So, you definitely think Toujou-sama cannot be trusted, then."

Maki felt her hands clenching into fists. "No way," she growled. She shook her head, trying to clear it. "Politicians don't give a crap about the people that actually live in this city. It's all about the stinking rich corporations, the powerful companies, and the stupid bureaucracy that allows them to do whatever the hell they want." Her voice hardened as she continued. "Toujou's no different from the rest of them. She just tries to hide it behind her pretty little face."

She finally sat back into her chair with a _thump_ , feeling drained as silenced ticked between them for several minutes. She almost wanted to go out there and drag Eli back herself. "Why is she so damn irrational whenever it comes to things like this?" she burst out suddenly, unable to contain her frustration.

Umi stood up to collect her bow from where she'd left it on one of her operating tables. There was a subtle hint of sorrow in her voice as she spoke. "You know why."

Finally defeated, Maki found that she had no argument for that particular insight. She did, indeed, know why.

 _If I was her, could I do what she's about to do?_

* * *

Eli found herself standing outside the district building. She had never been to this particular building before, although she had seen it more times she cared to count on television, thanks to it being Toujou's location of choice whenever she had to appear in front of the media.

Pulling her blonde hair into a ponytail and sticking the stray ends behind her ears, she walked through the large gate, consciously aware of the curious looks she was already attracting from various politicians. _I should've thought about what I was wearing before I came here._ With exposed shoulders and several intentional rips on her jeans, she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Ignoring the looks, she strode forward purposefully, fingers on both hands curled into fists at her sides. When she entered the building, the foyer was mercifully emptier than the grounds outside—there were always some sort of activist group doing gatherings in the lawn outside the district building and Toujou had made it illegal for peaceful demonstrations to be stopped.

The same receptionist that had greeted her the previous evening at Toujou's office building was sitting behind a similar desk. Eli noted that she also looked like she hadn't slept, judging from the bags under the rim of her glasses. She looked up as Eli approached her, and straightened several stacks of paper on her desk as she pointed a man down a particular hallway.

Eli was slightly taken aback when the woman rose and gave her a small bow. "Ayase-san," she greeted in the same small voice as she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose a little. "Please come this way," she said. Eli caught the nameplate on the woman's desk as she led her up a flight of stairs: _Koizumi._ It wasn't a surname she recognized, but she made a mental note to remember it in case it came up in her files in the future.

Koizumi paused outside of a large set of double doors. Even if she'd never been to the district building before, Eli could guess whose office this was. She watched as the brown-haired young woman raised a timid hand to knock twice, and a face she had seen many times on television opened the door a few moments later.

Fujiwara Hayato was Toujou's chief advisor. In his sixties now, he had been a prominent Tokyo politician starting over thirty years ago. A staunch supporter of the senior Toujou's platform, he had seen fit to continue to advise his daughter after his death. However, he belonged to an elitist circle of bureaucrats and businessmen alike, and Eli wondered if he had ever known what it was like to fight for his life in the streets of Tokyo in the first few days after the Ceresis attacks. Based on his current opposition of Toujou's newest law-in-making, she doubted it.

He looked down at the two of them as though they were pests he wanted to get rid of. Judging by the expression on his face as he raked his steel-grey gaze over Koizumi, he didn't have a very high opinion of her. Eli watched the expression in his eyes harden as they landed on her, but she refused to break eye contact, holding his gaze with an emotionless one of her own. By nature, she didn't back down from that sort of scare tactic.

"Uhm, Toujou-sama told me to show Ayase-san to her office when she got here," Koizumi stammered, clearly intimidated by the man who didn't seem to want to open the door wide enough to let them though.

"Ah, she's here already?" Toujou's voice carried through the crack in the door. "We'll continue our discussion later then, Fujiwara-san." The tone in her voice was cheerful, but clearly dismissive, as the older man let himself out, sending a contemptuous look their way as he left down the hallway.

Koizumi pushed the door open a little wider and held it open with her arm. It was obviously an invitation and Eli felt apprehension grip her stomach as she walked through the door.

Toujou's office was exactly the same as it always appeared in press conferences—there was too much plush and crystal and briefly Eli wondered how many starving people on the streets of Tokyo it would've fed during the worst of the Ceresis attacks if the government didn't spend it all on the district building. But she wasn't here to question—at least, now wasn't the time—and she made note of the watchful gazes of two armed soldiers standing guard on either side of the inside of the door.

Toujou herself was dressed in a matching blue outfit this morning, and Eli noticed that she had taken out the braid she'd worn in her hair the previous night before she bent her head in a customary bow. When she looked up, Toujou was resting her chin on both her gloved hands as she motioned for her to sit.

"I wanted to speak to you briefly before the district meeting today." Her voice was significantly less animated as Eli sat down. "As you know, the district leader of Kyoto went missing this morning."

Eli resisted the temptation to ask what that had to do with her. The gaze in Toujou's green eyes grew serious as she continued. "I don't expect this to be an isolated event, nor is it a coincidence."

"Why not?"

It was time to figure out just what Toujou was planning, and if she had to antagonize her in the process, then it was all the quicker to the real person underneath the charismatic mask.

"I know you are a smart woman, Ayase-san," Toujou replied delicately. "You wouldn't be sitting here in front of me if you weren't. That being said, I didn't just hire you for your intelligence. You'd be correct in assuming that part of my personal interest in you is that you work for yourself and have no ties to any business or military corporation in this city. If our partnership is to continue, I expect things to remain that way."

If _that_ was what Toujou had been concerned about, then she had no cause for worry. Eli bit her lip before she could ask about what Toujou had promised her in return.

Toujou's voice grew thoughtful as she continued. "However, your performance last night was no less than what I expected of someone of your reputation. As Kouchou explained to you last night, your anonymity will be preserved during this time. Of course, it also goes without saying that anything you see or hear—or discuss with me—remains confidential, but I believe Kouchou already touched on that. You qualify—along with the people you live with—for personal security as well. I will also see to it that accommodations will be made for you in the district building should you choose to live here during this time."

"No thank you," Eli replied stiffly without hesitation, knotting her hands her in lap.

A small smile twitched at the corner of Toujou's mouth. "It is up to you whether you want to use it, of course, but the accommodations will be made." She stood up, rearranging her hair that rested on her left shoulder. "Now, I believe it's time for the district meeting."

Without so much as a backwards glance, she made her way to the door, leaving Eli utterly speechless. _What? But we haven't even discussed—_ Irritated frustration grated against her nerves as she tried to control her temper, biting down on the inside of her cheek until she was sure she wouldn't say something that would get her arrested. Casting a wary glance at the two soldiers who were clearly waiting for her to get out of the room, she stalked forwards and almost slammed the door behind her before she remembered where she was.

Eli spied Toujou's long, violet hair down the hallway, and assumed that she was supposed to follow. _I can't_ believe _this_. She realized that her slender fingers were trembling and she clenched them into a fist again.

As annoyed and as furious as she was, now was not the time to have an outburst, especially when she was surrounded by security guards, and especially not at the leader of the Tokyo District herself. She took a long breath in through her nose, forcing herself to relax. To sabotage Toujou's expectations of her now would be more or less suicide—there would be about thirty different politicians in the room and Eli was pretty sure a number of them had the influence to have her arrested and tried on the grounds of refusing to cooperate. All Toujou had to do was say the word. _Damn it._

She realized that Toujou had stopped just outside of the door labelled _Conference Room._ Her security guards were standing a respectable distance back from them as Eli stopped behind her. "I don't need to find out anything from any of the other districts today," Toujou murmured in a low voice without turning around. Her voice was so quiet that if it hadn't been for the fact that she was the only person Toujou could've possibly been speaking to, Eli might not have paid any attention to it at all. "All I want you to do is to stop any attempts any one of them might be making to gain information from us. Can you do that?"

Eli was taken aback, momentarily forgetting her annoyance with her current head of state. She narrowed her eyes as she thought through what Toujou had just said, realizing that Toujou had already calculated the risks versus the benefits of the sacrifice she was choosing to make. For the first time, Eli felt a small prickle of admiration for the young woman in front of her—there was a reason she had stayed in power in the eight years since her father's death.

"Yes," she replied.

Toujou gave her a glance out of the corner of her eye. "Good. You'd better get ready then," she said, as she opened the doors.

One of the security guards beckoned her over to a corner before several of the politicians already in the room could gape at her. She noted that there were less than a dozen of them present and realized that these were not the people Toujou held debates with, but her advisors. A thin sheen of sweat was beginning to form in her palms and Eli realized she'd forgotten her gloves. It wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but the mixture of apprehension and frustrated impatience was beginning to make the smallest dents in her outwardly calm disposition. _Get a grip on yourself._

The computer screen was already loaded with the details of the upcoming conference and Eli realized that this conference in particular would _not_ be broadcasted to any media outlet. Briefly, she thought back to what Kouchou had told her the night before about leaks happening in the district building, and wondered why Toujou had chosen to hold this conference here, before she remembered that that was exactly why Toujou had hired her in the first place.

Video feed of the other nine district leaders in Japan began to pop up in the conference room. Eli scanned them quickly before glancing up once at Toujou. Video of her advisors were not being broadcast to the other district leaders, and it seemed that the other district leaders were employing the same tactic. However, just because she couldn't see them didn't mean that they weren't there.

Quickly typing a basic program to monitor the firewall that Toujou's tech specialists had already set up, Eli sat back in her seat a little, only half-paying attention to the things that were being said.

The first blip on her radar came about halfway through the conference, and it caught her attention almost immediately, alerting her to an attempt made to crack the rudimentary firewall. Quickly rewriting the security protocol, she ran a program of her own, fishing out several different protocol addresses it could've belonged to. Noting with grim satisfaction that whoever it was was having more difficulty with her rewritten security, Eli set her sights on cracking the exact address the breach had come from.

Her first investigation revealed over fifteen different places the address could've come from, all from different parts of various districts in Japan. This did not surprise her. She opened up a new window on the side of her screen, wishing that she had thought of this particular program before she'd come: networks were as unique as fingerprints, and packing terabytes of data on one fibre-optic cable was going to leave some residue data lying around somewhere. It was possible to trace that sort of data, if you knew what you were looking for. Typing as fast as possible, she set the program to search for potential matches within the parameters she had set. _You can fool a basic program, but you can't hide where you're doing it from._

Two matches came up on her screen as the program she'd written crunched through network data, occasionally necessitating Eli to bypass a security protocol or two, while she monitored her own security on Toujou's network. One was Kyoto's Hall of Justice. Not likely, given that it had been Kyoto's district leader who had gone missing, but she supposed she couldn't just dismiss the possibility.

The other was registered to a Misawa Shou in Osaka, Japan. To be precise, the address of the network that had been trying to breach the security protocol was registered to an office building in downtown Osaka. It had been easy for Eli to hack into the building's directory and compare it to Osaka's list of businesses that were recorded in Osaka's official government record.

She was alerted once again to another attempt at cracking the security on Toujou's network. Specifically, they were after control of the security cameras—the exact tactic Eli had used the previous night. Clearly, whoever it was had either smartened up or they'd gotten someone a little more competent.

She rewrote the algorithms on the firewall before she set about creating a new one—she would be a very poor hacker indeed if she didn't know how to deal with a security breach herself. Whoever it was was trying to overload the system's servers with too much data at one time—enough to make it shut down and restart, restoring defaults that allowed for easy outside access. It was a simple enough solution to rewrite the data parameters of Toujou's network, disallowing access in data increments greater than what she absolutely needed to run the conference.

Eli waited for a few minutes after inputting her revised protocol, but the change seemed to have stopped the attempt for the time being, and she gave herself a small moment to take a breath.

For the first time, Eli allowed herself to pay attention to what was actually being said in the conference itself.

"I'm sure you can understand the need for greater security protocols around the district leaders, Toujou-sama. I suggest that you raise your budget for personal security before extending that kind of financial assistance to the… less fortunate in your district."

Eli did not miss the derisive tone in the older man's voice.

Toujou's voice was sweet as she replied. "And I suggest you focus on your own district before worrying about mine, Harada-sama."

The man let out a snort, but didn't press the issue. "I don't see anything of value to continue to talk about. Meeting adjourned." Before any of the other district leaders had a chance to say something, he disconnected.

Toujou signalled at one of her tech specialists to cut the call as well, before her advisors erupted into a babble of noise. Toujou got up from her seat and slowly paced once at the front of the room. On her way back, she passed Eli. "Meet me in my office," she murmured quietly, too quietly for the rest of her advisors to hear, before dismissing her along with the rest of her tech specialists.

* * *

Eli stood outside Toujou's office, arms crossed over her chest as she waited. Impatient nerves prickled against her skin as she waited for the district leader to return, although there was no doubt that she was discussing what had just transpired in the district meeting she'd attended less than half an hour ago. While she had certainly gathered some interesting information, the importance of that information paled in comparison to what she hoped Toujou would deliver.

Unease grasped the bottom of her throat tightly, and she swallowed, suddenly remembering Umi's dire warning for her to be careful.

 _I'm already too deep into this to back out now, Umi. You know that._

But it was worth the risk—whatever it would end up being. The information Toujou had had been hidden from her for too long, and no matter what the risk entailed, whether it was on her own life or the morals she had set for herself, Eli was determined to obtain it.

The sound of high heels against marble alerted her to the presence of Toujou, accompanied by a pair of guards. She opened the door to her office, and Eli followed her through it. Toujou beckoned for her to sit down, but didn't do so herself. Instead, she clasped her hands behind her back and faced the window, looking out into the sunny grounds.

"What did you find out, Ayase-san?"

Eli was fairly certain that Toujou already knew the answer to that particular question, but she decided to humour her. "Someone was trying to get past your security," she said slowly, keeping her tone carefully neutral.

Toujou did not seem surprised one bit by this information. "As I suspected. I assume they didn't succeed."

"No. But I'm almost sure that it was Osaka," Eli supplied, her heartbeat racing against the back of her throat, hoping that Toujou had at least secured her office from potential bugs.

Toujou half turned at that revelation, a serious expression in her thoughtful green gaze as she looked at Eli. "You did more than I expected you to. Thank you," she said, before turning around to sit down. Eli waited, heart rate increasing, as she leafed through the piles of paper on her desk.

The plum-haired woman lowered the volume of her voice as she removed several pieces of paper that had been clipped together. "We didn't have time discuss the second part of our deal before the meeting started. I haven't forgotten what I promised you, Ayase-san. But before I approve a proper investigation, I wanted to clarify with you that the information _I_ have is correct." She handed Eli the small stack of papers. "This is who you're looking for… correct?"

Eli could've sworn that her throat had suddenly dried up and that she had momentarily forgotten how to breathe. The name on the front of the file hit her like a physical blow to the chest: _Ayase Alisa._

* * *

Her younger sister had been fortunate—very fortunate, the paramedics later said—to have been spared by the Ceresis that had inevitably devastated their family home. For the first few weeks, Alisa had recuperated in the local city hospital, before Eli had brought her home. Umi and Maki had welcomed the younger girl, knowing and understanding that she, too, was an orphan just like the rest of them.

And for the first few years, things had been alright. Money was tight on more than one occasion, but they had managed. It had involved more than a fair number of sleepless nights on Eli's part, but she was determined to keep her family—her new family—together no matter what.

When Alisa had graduated high school, three years later, Eli had encouraged her to continue with her ballet training in the studio that had been rebuilt downtown, and made the effort to pick her up at the end of her practices if she was able to make it. After central Tokyo had been rebuilt in the aftermath of the first Ceresis attacks in 2022, all of them had no choice but to carry on in a life that was different from the one that had existed before the Ceresis, but was still life just the same.

But February 2026 would change all of that. A man from the outer district, infected with Edenra, had stumbled into the heart of Tokyo on February 14th, 2026. To the present day, no one was certain what he had intended to do: some said that he had known he was about to turn, and wanted revenge on the privileged, non-infected citizens who had shunned him, while other claims stated that he had just been starving, homeless, and desperate. But whatever his intentions had been, he had transformed into a Ceresis in the middle of downtown Tokyo.

Within half an hour, the city had been enveloped in chaos.

The army scrambled to mobilize the forces that now knew how to deal with the Ceresis, but the soldiers would not make it in time to save the hundreds of thousands of citizens out of a city whose population had already been reduced to a third of what it had been pre-2022 from infection.

Eli had gone to pick up her younger sister that day. When she'd heard the screams, the gunfire, and the roar of inevitable flames, she had run to the ballet studio that Alisa was still at. The door to the studio had sagged wide open as she slipped through it. She had spotted Alisa with a knot of other students, and had tried calling her name, but her sister hadn't heard her over the amount of noise and panic that gripped the small building.

She had been forced to hide when a Ceresis had forced its way through the hastily-barricaded door. Hidden next to a glass display case near a supply closet, she had caught sight of Alisa hiding across the room from her. But she had been wholly unprepared for the moment when the Ceresis had clawed open the gas pipe—combined with the flames that were coming from the building next door, it had created an almost instantaneous explosion.

Eli had raised her arms to protect her head as the lights blew in the room, but a piece of glass had sliced across her forehead, opening a gash above her right eyebrow as the roof of the building had begun to cave in, trapping her in the doorframe of the supply closet. Hastily wiping blood off her face, coughing in the rising smoke, she had frantically searched for her sister in the dark aftermath of the explosion, finally locating her in roughly the same location that she had been in before, only with the lone Ceresis advancing on her.

Even now, three years later, she still could not completely process the events of the next few minutes. She was certain that she cried her sister's name out loud the same moment a few soldiers had broken through the ruined building, alerting the Ceresis and aggravating it. In the ensuing chaos, she was not sure if Alisa had heard her. But Eli was absolutely positive about one thing—she had seen the Ceresis take a swing at Alisa, and it had connected with her arm. But she couldn't move from where she was, unable to get past the heavy wood blocking her way and when she'd swiped her hand across her forehead it had come away sticky with blood.

Eli never saw her sister again.

She was not completely sure how she had ended up curled in a ball underneath a blanket on the floor of the hospital hallway. She had only been aware of the passage of time because Umi had come in sometime during the night, frantically shaking her once or twice before pulling her into an very uncharacteristic hug. The two of them had watched in silence as a laboratory technologist had taken her blood to test for the presence of the Edenra virus, even though Eli knew that it would be negative. But when she'd asked about Alisa, she had gotten an answer in the form of a single sentence: _"I don't know."_

February 14th, 2026 would come to be known as _Bloody Valentine_. It was in the aftermath of that day that Tokyo District's new head of state, Toujou Nozomi, legalized the right of non-infected humans to carry a weapon at all times.

In the months that followed, no matter whom she asked, whether it was the hospital or the government, she had gotten the same three word response. But Eli was sure that it wasn't because _they_ didn't know—it was because _she_ wasn't allowed to know the answer.

Maki had looked in the hospital database for her, but had found nothing except for Alisa's previous hospital record that didn't date past October 2022. Eli had hacked into the same database, but had found no evidence that Alisa's record had been changed in any way.

She had spent more than one sleepless night sitting in front of her laptop, stubbornly staring at the bright screen, wondering if it was worth it to hack into the government's database. She would talk herself into actually doing it, then Umi would wake up the next morning and talk her out of it. _"So what if you get the information?"_ the blue-haired woman had demanded. _"Do you think you can use it if you're imprisoned for the rest of your life? Is that information worth throwing everything you have away for?"_

On some of her worst days, Eli was convinced the answer was yes. But she had never actually followed through with her intent—because at the end of the day, she knew Umi was right. She was after that information for a reason, and there would be no point to obtaining it if she couldn't follow up on it. Even now, years later, the thought of it haunted her, lurking at the back of her mind almost constantly.

Until one day, she received a call from the government itself offering her the information that she had been denied for years.

* * *

Eli realized that she was holding onto the thin stack of paper so tightly that she had already crinkled the pages. "Yes," she finally whispered, hating how her voice had caught at the back of her throat because it was so constricted.

She finally looked up to notice that Toujou was staring at her with a strange, unreadable expression on her face. She stood, holding out the stapled pieces of paper. "Yes," she repeated.

Toujou took the file from her, but did not drop her gaze, as she stood too.

She brushed past Eli on her way to the door, but paused before she reached the doorknob. "Ayase-san."

There was an odd, almost pleading quality to her speech as well, but Eli couldn't understand why Toujou would ever feel the need to pity _her_. "Are you sure you want me to follow through with this?"

She whipped her head around, staring at the district leader in disbelief. "W-What?" she asked hoarsely, before clearing her throat once. "Of course I'm sure."

Toujou breathed in slowly once before she spoke again. "The truth, Ayase-san, is both beautiful and terrifying. Some people spend their whole lives searching for it and never find it, not because they don't look hard enough, but because it is something they cannot accept. Are you truly prepared to accept whatever the truth may be?"

She didn't wait for an answer before opening the door and exiting the room, leaving Eli to stand there.

* * *

 _Maki pushed open the gate to her family mansion, fumbling with the latch as she let herself in. Behind her stumbled a slightly taller blonde, who was supporting a young woman with blue-black hair. "You… don't have to come in with me," she repeated for the umpteenth time._

" _No," Umi instantly argued. "We're coming."_

 _Maki didn't bother repeating herself, but led the way up the small stone path that led to the front door. Before she'd even laid a hand on the doorknob, however, she heard the distorted gargle of a laugh. She thought she recognized the voice, but a haze had stolen over her senses, dulling them._

 _She wrenched the door open, not knowing what exactly to expect and yet fully expecting the worst. She held the heavy wooden door ajar to let Umi and Eli in, before closing it behind her._

" _Maki…" Eli's voice was a croak. "Who's that?"_

 _Squinting in the gloom, she could also make out the hunched silhouette of a man not far away from them in the ruined foyer. She recognized the lab coat he was wearing, because it was one she had tried on many times when her father was not home. "Papa?"_

 _The man did not appear to hear her, and the three of them approached him warily, cautiously stepping over cracked floor tiles and glass shards. Her father was crouched near the stairs, cradling something in his hands as they neared him. "Papa?" she repeated._

" _They wanted me to do it… They wanted all this. They can't blame me… I only did what they asked me to do." Maki couldn't seem to understand what her father was saying._

" _Papa? I-It's me." She knelt beside him, barely paying attention to the glass that dug into her knees before she gasped. She couldn't see exactly what he was holding in his hands, but it was dark with blood that seeped onto the floor and it instantly made her nauseous._

" _They wanted me to do it…" he repeated. "This is what they get for letting me make this."_

 _She could not understand what he was saying—because that meant that her father had created the monstrosities that were roaming the streets of Tokyo outside and her father would_ never _have willingly created things like that. He'd always told her about the importance of human life, how hard he was working to make life better for people—that was why he'd become a doctor. Maki could not associate that man with the man kneeling in front of her._

 _Hot tears burned at the corners of her eyes, but Maki was past caring about crying in front of other people at this point. "I-I don't understand," she stammered, hastily wiping her face. "A-Are you saying you did all this?"_

 _Her father was silent for several long minutes, broken only by the sound of slightly laboured breathing. Who it belonged to, Maki couldn't tell._

" _Maki…?" he finally rasped, turning to look at her with an expression she couldn't understand in his eyes. "Have… you been here long?"_

 _She could not understand that question either, until he raised a gun in violently shaking hands, pointing it at her. She scrambled backwards on her hands in surprise as he looked around wildly. "W-What are you doing?" she cried out, almost tripping in her haste to get back up, not missing the gasps from Umi and Eli behind her._

 _Her father rose too, not lowering the gun he kept pointed at her. "I'm sorry, Maki…" There was a crazed, desperate tone in his voice as tears slipped down his face. "But you… you weren't supposed to know that. You finally found some friends… but they're not supposed to know either."_

 _She shrieked as he missed the first shot because of how badly his hands were trembling, stumbling backwards until her back hit the wall. Covering her head with her arms, her mind could barely process what was going on, but could somehow rationalize that her hands would do nothing to protect her if he actually managed to hit her._

" _Why?" she yelled back at him, tears blinding her vision almost completely._

 _He fired again, missing her by several feet and shattering a vase that had stood at the foot of the stairs. "You weren't supposed to know, Maki…" he repeated, squeezing the trigger and missing Umi by inches. "You weren't supposed to know I did this."_

" _Stop!" she screeched. "Stop this!"_

* * *

Maki woke with a gasp. Her head was on the cool metal surface of one of her operating tables and she blinked in the hazy light. Her computer was still on, its bright screen contrasting sharply with the dimness of her lab. She let out a frustrated growl as she rubbed her eyes a few times. _That dream again…_

She shook her head, running her fingers through red hair several times as she tried to clear the last vestiges of her dream from her mind. She looked for her watch, before remembering that she'd removed it from her wrist before she'd started the autopsy.

The time on her computer read 19:31. Cursing to herself, she remembered what she was supposed to be doing before her impromptu nap. The bullet that the police department had collected from the scene was still in its evidence bag, the plastic surface reflecting the light from her computer screen.

She threw a container of cup ramen into a large beaker, adding in some mayonnaise and a few tomato slices she kept in the small fridge at the back of her lab before putting it on her hot plate. While her meal heated, she examined the bullet again.

 _I really should be getting back to my research,_ she told herself, but the mystery of the bullet couldn't escape her thoughts. She glanced once at the heating units she'd installed into the wall opposite her computers that contained her still-growing samples—they probably wouldn't be ready for her until the following morning.

Maki furrowed her brows as she thought, playing with the bullet in the bag, before she pulled out her cellphone. There was a single message on it from Umi, letting her know that she would be spending the night at Kotori's place. She picked Umi from her list of contacts and waited for the line to connect.

It rung three times before someone picked up. "Maki? What is it?" Umi's voice filtered through the speakers.

"Umi, when are you seeing Hoshizora Rin next?" she started without preamble.

"Rin? In a few days. Why?" Umi sounded slightly suspicious.

Maki resisted the temptation to roll her eyes, partially because Umi couldn't see her. "I need someone with her kind of expertise to help identify something. Do you think she'd be willing to do it for you?"

Umi was silent for a few moments. "I suppose…" Her voice trailed off. "This isn't something dangerous, is it?" she added after a brief pause.

"Not anymore," she replied, drumming her fingers on the metal surface of her desk. _At least, I'm pretty sure it isn't, if Hoshizora knows what she's doing._

Umi's sigh came out as slightly crackly over the phone speakers. "Fine. Just remember to give it to me tomorrow before I leave," she said, before cutting the line.

Maki snorted once as she put her phone down, before wheeling her chair over to her hot plate and taking her beaker full of noodles off of it and sticking her fork in her mouth. She decided to turn on the news while she ate before she checked on her samples again. There was an entire array of analysis that she'd hoped to get done before the end of the week, and pipettes didn't pipette themselves. She could hire a lab technician of her own, of course, but she didn't think she actually trusted anyone else with anything that stayed in her personal laboratory. Well, there were exceptions, but Eli and Umi couldn't tell the difference from a PCR machine to a scale, and more importantly, knew better than to touch her samples.

Her current position had not been easy to achieve—the label "Nishikino's daughter" had followed her nearly everywhere for seven and a half years, and it had taken most people a long time to realize that she was serious about what she wanted to do. It was only after she'd garnered an exceptional reputation as a very efficient surgeon that she had been granted access to Edenra samples and had been allowed to conduct her own research on it.

Maki found that she was gripping the glass beaker in her left hand hard enough to see her skin whiten. _No matter what, I'll find the solution to this._


	4. Illusionary Crossroads

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** Sakkaku CROSSROADS (錯覚CROSSROADS lit. _Illusionary Crossroads_ ) - BiBi

* * *

" _When I was little, my father told me that it was knowledge and power that made the human race so great. He pointed out that Tokyo was one of the most advanced cities in the world and gave me examples of how it was one of the most prosperous. How could I not believe him?_

 _Even in my adult life, I believed that if we had enough knowledge, humanity could overcome anything._

 _That changed when the Ceresis destroyed Tokyo, and again four years later, when my father died during Bloody Valentine, just one more number in the hundreds that lost their lives and the thousands who lost what it meant to be human._

 _It was then I realized that my father had never been right. Humanity's greatest gift had never been knowledge, nor the means to obtain it. The greatest gift that we can ask for is the courage to accept everything that has happened—to be unafraid of the future, no matter what it may bring." —Toujou Nozomi_

* * *

Umi brushed wet bangs out of her face in the early June rain as she stepped out from the cover of the stairwell. It wasn't quite morning yet, but she had a fair number of things to do that day and had decided that it was better if she got started early. The trek to the fence and back would take her at _least_ a few hours combined and she'd promised Kotori she would pick up a few things for her and drop them off.

Her roommates had still been sleeping when Umi had quietly let herself out, and she'd taken extra care not to wake anyone up. Maki was a notorious night owl who absolutely detested being woken up earlier than necessary, but Umi had been especially careful to avoid Eli's wrath this morning—Eli hadn't been the same since she'd come home from the district building. Umi had expected her to sleep for sixteen hours straight, but what she had _not_ expected was her extremely erratic temperament afterwards, something she hadn't seen from her in quite some time.

Maki had given up trying to deal with Eli's mood swings and spent most of her time shut up in her lab; she'd almost refused to let Umi in before Umi reminded her she was there to pick up the thing that she had wanted Rin to look at.

Umi did not particularly like or approve of Maki's method of handling this particular problem, as inevitably it would have to be addressed sooner or later, but she'd let it go at the time. However, the crux of the matter was sure to present itself in some way or another soon and she knew she had to deal with it before that—Umi fervently hoped that Eli would be in an amicable enough mood today to speak more than three sentences to her.

Because of the rain, she had thankfully spotted only a few military vehicles in the outskirts of Tokyo driving slowly in the mud. Few bounty hunters liked to hunt while it was raining and the outer district looked deserted. No doubt most of its inhabitants would be spending the day inside, which suited Umi just fine, because the less people that saw her today, the better.

Umi cast a furtive glance down both sides of the muddy road before she pushed the burlap curtain of a front door to Rin's shop aside. The narrow street was empty, but she could never be too sure that no one was following her. She had taken care to make it look like she was just venturing into Rin's shop after a successful hunt—her usual routine—though her mission today was far more sinister that that. The bullet in the plastic bag stuffed deep in the inside pocket of her jacket felt like it weighed a million more times than she actually did.

A cat brushed her ankles as she entered, rubbing its face against her pantleg for a few moments before slipping out into the storm, fur bristling. Rin herself had her eyes glued to the small television up on a shelf—Umi remembered that there was a televised senate meeting this morning, and she had to clear her throat once to catch Rin's attention.

"Umi-chan! You're awfully early today," she greeted, pushing herself up from her stool. "I was wondering if nya maybe weren't going to show up because it's raining."

Umi gave her a grim smile as she approached the counter. Rin's enthusiastic grin slacked a little as she drew closer, catching the serious expression in her amber gaze. "Is something the matter, Umi-chan?"

Umi thanked whatever gods remained above their skies that Rin had the sense to lower the volume of her voice. "No." She paused, looking around Rin's shop once even though they both knew it was empty. "Listen, Rin, can you do me a favour?"

Rin gave her a puzzled look as her head tilted slightly to one side. "What kind of favour are nya talking about?"

She pulled the bag out of her jacket pocket and pushed it across the countertop towards Rin. The orange-haired woman picked up the bag to examine its contents. "Can you identify this?" Umi asked her in a low voice, fervently hoping that Rin had made sure her shop wasn't bugged.

Rin looked at the bullet in the plastic for a few long heartbeats. "Well… I can't, but it shouldn't be a problem to ask one of the people who works for my dad." The expression in her hazel eyes finally turned serious. "Is this important, Umi-chan?"

Umi nodded. "Rin, I wouldn't ask you if—"

The other woman cut her off. "It's fine, Umi-chan. But this'll take me at least a few days to organize. And… nya don't want everyone finding out about this, right?"

It wasn't a question that needed to be answered and they both knew it. Rin scrunched the plastic bag into her left hand and swept it off the countertop—Umi saw her slip it into the pockets of the pants she was wearing.

"Thank you, Rin," she said quietly.

Rin looked up and gave her a satisfied smile. "You'll just owe me big time, Umi-chan," she quipped in her normal voice.

Umi couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped her lips. "I'm sure I will," she replied, before turning to leave, Rin waving her out as she stepped back out into the rain.

The downpour had intensified in the half an hour or so that she'd been inside, and Umi was more than happy to step over the cement blocks at the waterfront and back onto cement. Her boots were caked in mud and she winced at the thought of the amount of attention she would attract in the grocery store. But there was no getting around it—she had promised Kotori she would pick up some groceries for her and Umi was nothing if not accountable.

Forty-five minutes later, she stopped at the base of the stairwell that led up to the apartment complex that Kotori shared with her mother. Hands full with the things Kotori had told her to buy and her bow on her back in a cloth cover, she fumbled a little for her keys, finally fishing them out of her jacket pocket and inserting the right one into the keyhole.

"Hello?" she called into the apartment.

Kotori's head popped up from behind the doorframe, her soft brown hair still in the customary braid she wore to work. She put a finger to her lips as she beckoned Umi in. "My mother's still sleeping," she whispered as she took one of the bags from Umi's hands as Umi took off her boots, feeling a slight blush creep up her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Umi apologized a little sheepishly, lowering her voice to match Kotori's whisper.

Kotori gave her a slight smile. "Don't worry about it, Umi-chan. Thank you for buying everything I wanted. I'll go put these away, okay? Go get yourself something warm to drink." While Kotori was busy in her small kitchen, Umi poured herself a cup of tea and sat on one of the stools in the living room, staring out at the rain that was drenching the city. She let the teacup warm up her hands while she sat there, her mind still on how exactly she was planning to breach the topic of Alisa in her impending conversation with Eli.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't hear Kotori come up behind her, starting a little when Kotori put a light hand on her shoulder. "Is something wrong, Umi-chan?"

Umi stared at the surface of her tea. "It's Eli," she finally answered. "She just… she hasn't been the same since she came back from the district building. It's… almost like I don't know who she is anymore."

Kotori was silent for awhile. While Umi did not like talking about Eli behind her back, she had given her fiancée a brief version of the events that had transpired in the last two weeks. Realistically, there was no way for her to hide something of that magnitude from Kotori—even if Kotori had not met the other members of Umi's family and were not friends with them, she had the heart in her to want to help them, no matter who they were.

 _Besides… if I can't trust Kotori, who in the world can I trust?_

The answer narrowed down to a very short list that had not bothered Umi one bit… until she had met a certain brown-haired someone.

Kotori took a step towards the window, the fingers of one hand thoughtfully rested on her chin while the other was behind her back. "Well… are you sure you don't know her?" she asked as she half-turned to face Umi. "How would you describe her normally?"

Umi didn't even need to think about it before the answer came to her lips. "She tries the hardest to hide her weak side and tries too hard to solve her problems on her own without asking for help, and that makes it difficult to talk to her when there _is_ a problem. But… out of all of us, she's probably the one that's most easily influenced by her feelings, and because of that, she's probably also the most prone to making a rash decision." She paused for a moment, realizing what Kotori was trying to do. "But she really does care about the people she loves." _Maybe too much._

She looked up to see Kotori smiling at her. "See, Umi-chan? You _do_ know her." She leaned down a little and pressed a gentle kiss to Umi's temple. Umi could feel her cheeks reddening again. Physical affection was something new to Umi—neither Maki nor Eli were much for grandiose displays of affection and it had been completely uncharted territory for her to try to navigate in. Even now, years later, certain things still made her blush, something Kotori never hesitated to point out when they happened.

This time, though, her fiancée let things slide as Umi gave her a weak smile in return. "I guess you're right," she sighed. It didn't make her look forward to that particular conversation any more, but it made her feel slightly better that Kotori agreed with her that it was the right thing to do.

Kotori giggled. "You know, I'm always right when it comes to things like this." She made a shooing motion with her hands. "Now come help me with lunch or it'll take me forever to finish." Umi took her offered hand and followed her into the kitchen, where Kotori promptly tied a frilly apron around her that made her growl but made her fiancée erupt in peals of repeated laughter watching her struggle with it.

She supposed that if it made Kotori happy, that was all that mattered.

* * *

Umi let herself into the darkened apartment, noting that the shades had only been half drawn, letting in watery light that did not quite penetrate the stillness of the rainy day outside. She took care to make an extra bit of noise removing her boots and jacket, and waited a few heartbeats before calling out a tentative greeting.

"Hello?"

There was no reply until she poked her head around the corner of the hallway and spotted Eli sitting on her chair by the window, hand resting against the side of her face. The blonde barely turned at the sound of Umi's approach. "Hey."

Noting that Eli was at least willing to say _something_ to her today, Umi stepped over the threshold of the doorway and stood just on the inside of the small, almost-bare room. There was no need for any of them to keep anything important in the apartment, and each of their rooms had one or two personal items in them at best. Her eyes lingered over a photograph on the bedside cabinet, and Umi swallowed nervously. _Here we go…_

"Can we talk?" She had decided on the way back from Kotori's that there was no point in beating about the bush. Not only would it most likely spark Eli's irrational irritation again, it would only delay the inevitable conversation, and likely make it harder than it had to be.

Eli did not reply, but Umi wasn't going to give up that easily—undeterred by the lack of a response, she ploughed on. "You… haven't been the same since you went to the district building," she ventured, pausing when she noticed Eli stiffen slightly. "What happened?"

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of falling rain against the windows and balcony. Umi got the sense that Eli was trying to decide between divulging in what had actually transpired with Toujou, or telling her to leave and not come back. She kept quiet, crossing her arms as she waited.

She was not prepared for the softness in Eli's voice when she finally spoke. "Umi. Do you think… I'm doing the right thing?"

For a moment, Umi wasn't sure if she was finally losing her mind, or she'd actually heard Eli say the sentence she thought she had. A few seconds dragged by before Umi realized the blonde was serious. She took a step towards her. "What?" It was difficult to keep the blank shock out of her words and Umi hated how derisive she sounded as she took a few more steps towards her. "Are you serious?" She paused for a moment. "Eli… what happened?" she repeated.

Eli finally stood up, though she kept her gaze firmly on the dreary view outside the window. Umi noticed that she had her hands balled into fists at her side before she forcibly relaxed them. "Toujou… asked me if I was sure I wanted to know the truth to the answers I wanted to find."

Umi bit down on her lower lip because she could sense that there was more to this particular insight, controlling the urge to stop Eli right then and there. _I know where this is going to go._

"I don't know…" Eli continued, a hint of pain creeping into the soft tone of her voice. "There was something about the way she said it that made me feel like she knew more than what she was letting on. Not the information, but… it was like she'd been in my shoes before. It was like… she was trying to stop me from making what she thought was a bad decision."

"Why are you even considering what she's saying?" Umi interrupted, unable to control herself any longer. "Of _course_ she's going to tell you something like that—it would be nice if you worked for her for absolute free, would it not? I know I was against you going in the first place, but Eli, this is something you've been working towards for years. Are you just going to give up this up because _Toujou-sama_ , someone we both know we don't trust, said that it wasn't a good idea?"

She took an involuntary step back as Eli finally whipped around, the storm of emotions in her blue eyes making Umi flinch inwardly. "I know that. I know all of that," she repeated. "But like you said, Toujou has no reason to trust me. She could've let me walk away with that information and not come back. Why would she want to do that? Why would she _tell me_ that it's a bad decision, when she has literally nothing to gain from saying it? It doesn't make sense."

Umi let her arms drop to her sides as she closed her eyes for a brief moment. "Are you going to regret saying no, then?" She found that she had more control of her voice than she had thought as she continued. "You need to decide, Eli. Maybe Toujou-sama is right. Maybe it _is_ a bad decision. But are you sure you're going to be okay with making the decision to not know for the rest of your life?"

The two of them stared at each other for a long time. It might've lasted only the space of a single heartbeat, or dragged on forever in infinite seconds.

She watched as Eli eventually tilted her head up by the slightest margin, taking a deep breath before speaking again. "No. You're right." The tone of her voice intensified as she continued. "I have to know. Even if this is the wrong decision to make, it'll hurt more not to know for the rest of my life, knowing I could've had the chance to figure it out."

Eli finally met her gaze again as the two of them stood there; the only sound between them for several long minutes was the rain outside as Umi watched the resolve form in Eli's cerulean gaze.

The silence was broken when Umi's phone rang in her pocket, causing both of them to look at it. She pulled it out of her shirt pocket, narrowing her eyes slightly when the name of the caller appeared on the display: _Nishikino Maki._ She put it to her ear as it rang again. "Hello?"

"Umi?" Maki's voice sounded strained and Umi could hear the sound of rapid footsteps against linoleum floors as Maki walked. "Where are you right now?"

"In the apartment. Why?" By the tone of Maki's voice, she assumed that the redhead was not up for anything other than business at the moment.

"Have you seen the news this morning?"

"No," she replied.

There was a hint of static on the other end before Maki spoke. "Go turn the television on. Now."

Striding into the living room, Eli following her, Umi did what she was told. Her fingers tightened on the small device in her hand as a news report from Kyoto re-broadcasted; she wasn't even aware of the fact that Maki had hung up on her.

" _The body of Maeda Yuusuke, former district head of Kyoto, was discovered in the outer district of Kyoto this morning. The cause of death is still unknown, though an autopsy is underway. The senate of Kyoto will meet this morning to determine Maeda's successor, and authorities would like to inform the citizens of Kyoto that no public threat has been identified at this time."_

The message was put on repeat as Umi stared at it for the second time in a row, as though listening to it again would somehow make the words clearer. _What is going on? Why—_

She was distracted from her thoughts when Eli spoke behind her. "This was bound to happen."

Umi half-turned towards her. "What do you mean?" She caught sight of the expression on Eli's face, wondering exactly how she would've come to that conclusion so quickly before she remembered that Eli dealt with private military corporations and businessmen on an almost daily basis, neither of which—in Tokyo at the very least— had a spotless reputation for things of a similar calibre.

"The moment he went missing—there was no way he'd be found alive. District heads don't just wander out of the district buildings in the middle of the night for a stroll. In fact," she went on. "I'm surprised it took them a week and a half to find him."

"So you think someone killed him on purpose? But, I mean, why now?" she asked. "He's been the district head ever since the first Ceresis attacks."

Eli shook her head. "You don't get how this works, Umi. At least within the big businesses and military corporations I've dealt with… and it's probably similar enough if you're a politician. It's too obvious if you get rid of someone right when they come into power, especially if you're rivals. It's much more convenient if you leave them alone, let them think they're safe, and then finally get them out of your way when they're actually _in_ your way."

It took a few minutes for Umi to digest what Eli had just said. "But… they're just going to get found out, are they not? Who killed him, I mean?"

The blonde shrugged. "They still haven't figured out who killed the guy at the scramble—or even found out what the sniper looks like. Murder may be illegal, Umi, but it doesn't mean no one does it. Especially in this city, where the most successful companies are the ones scrambling to make bigger guns than everyone else. I'm sure you've noticed—ordinary citizens like us are just tools for them to conduct their corporate wars on each other, especially most of us don't have the power to leave the city's boundaries. It's about who you can intimidate the most, and there aren't any laws stopping how you do it. I'm pretty sure the political world is no different."

Even as Eli spoke the words, Umi knew she was right. She had seen how the private military companies and weapons manufacturers conducted themselves, especially outside of the fence perimeter where technically, the government had no control over, and especially in people like Satou Fubuki, who had been groomed and lived eyeball deep in Tokyo's darker side.

Umi was about to open her mouth to respond when a second phone rang—she recognized the ringtone as Eli's. Noting that Eli didn't even pause to look at the screen before answering it, she waited, although she was not surprised in the slightest when Eli addressed the caller by name. "Toujou-sama."

She watched Eli's fingers tighten slightly against the outside of her phone as she spoke. "No, I'll be there." She hung up before making her way to the door, letting out a disgusted snort as she took in the weather outside. Umi didn't follow her, knowing where she was going.

Eli paused after she threw on a jacket, pushing her hair back underneath a hood as the stiff breeze grabbed at it. "Umi… thanks," she said quietly, before closing the door with a slam, aided by a gust of wind.

* * *

Eli stared at the screen of the computer in front of her, finally satisfied with the end product of her labour: Toujou had asked her to completely recreate the security system of the district building and while it was not a job that she usually agreed to doing, every time annoyance prickled against her nerves for the past few days, Umi's words came back to her: _"Are you sure you're going to be okay with making the decision to not know for the rest of your life?"_

She could admit that Toujou's words had made her feel uneasy and had somehow made its way to the hesitant, indecisive side that she'd spent years building up a wall to try to hide. But Eli was also convinced of one thing—based on the uncharacteristic emotion in Toujou's voice when she had spoken to her, she was certain that violet-haired woman had accidentally let her composure slip. There had been a sincerely genuine tone in her words that Eli had never heard from her before, whether it had been on air or in her brief interactions with her. Umi hadn't been there, so Eli could understand why her blue-haired friend had been so quick to dismiss Toujou's sentiments, and even though Umi's words had had the desired effect on her, she had no doubt that there was some sort of story behind Toujou's warning, if only for the fact that it had come out like a plea. She couldn't quite explain why it had had such a big impact on her, enough to trigger habits that she did her best to hide, but… _There's something about her. It's… like she's always trying to find something to say or do that gets me, whether it's on purpose or not._

She gave her head a small shake, dislodging blonde bangs from the hairclip she tried to keep them in order with. _Now isn't the time to wonder about her intentions._ She stood up, wincing slightly at the flare of pins and needles in her legs.

 _At least after this, I won't have to worry about managing this._ Toujou had already informed her that one of her own tech specialists would be taking over the new security system.

If truth was told, in the few days Eli had stayed at the district building she had avoided Toujou's office as much as possible. Not only was she not keen to speak one on one again with her head of state, she also didn't want the purple-haired woman to say something else that would completely change the resolve she'd already made.

But now she had no choice—she had to let Toujou know she was finished and Eli found her anxiety levels rising ever so slightly as she followed Koizumi to the door of Toujou's office.

Thankfully, there were no voices coming from behind the door this time as the demure young woman knocked timidly on the wood. "Ayase-san's here to see you, Toujou-sama," she announced in her customary barely-audible voice; Eli wondered if Toujou could even hear her from behind the heavy oak.

"Come in," came the reply, as one of her bodyguards opened the door from the inside.

Eli took a breath, feeling her heart rate elevate against her sternum as she walked over the threshold.

Toujou was sitting at her desk, but she had already put away whatever she was looking at before Eli had come through the door. She noticed that the chair she'd been sitting in last time wasn't here this time, but standing didn't bother her—she didn't intend to stay any longer than absolutely necessary anyways.

"Ayase-san. I take it you're finished?" she asked as soon as Eli looked up.

"Yes," she replied, carefully keeping her reply a one-word sentence.

If Toujou was bothered or offended by her brevity, she didn't show it. "Good. I'll have my tech team monitor that in the future. Thank you."

There was a pause, as Toujou opened her mouth once and closed it before speaking again. "About… the investigation we discussed last time. I had Koizumi-san look through the city's records."

Eli's breath caught in her throat. She was unsure of what she was expecting, but her feelings didn't have time to manifest completely before Toujou continued. "Currently, there is no one by the name of Ayase Alisa employed, residing, or studying in the city of Tokyo. Koizumi-san has compared the last entry in her file to birth dates, physical descriptions, and hospital admissions within the last four years. There aren't any matches."

This information did not surprise Eli. She doubted Koizumi had access to more databases than she did at any given time, but at least the limited research she had been able to do herself had not been wrong. "So…"

Toujou finished her sentence for her as she laced her fingers together on her desktop. "So, the conclusion as of right now is that Ayase Alisa-san is not in Tokyo. However, as you might be aware of, the city doesn't keep a record of anyone who lives in the outer district. Do you think that that's a possibility?"

Eli didn't know how to answer her. She had been to the outskirts of Tokyo before—remembering the desolation she had seen on the Edenra victim's faces, pain clenched her throat for a moment as she considered the possibility. "I guess," she replied finally, when she trusted herself enough not to show that emotion on her face.

The violet-haired woman was silent for a few heartbeats at her reply. "Then I'll order an investigation to start in the outer districts. But, it will take some time to conduct a thorough investigation."

"Fine," she said. _What else can I say?_

There was a loud knock at the door, but Koizumi wasn't there to announce anyone this time as an older man entered the room without waiting for a reply. Eli recognized Fujiwara Hayato simply from the way he carried himself as he strode to the front of the room until he stood only about a foot away from Toujou's desk.

To Toujou's credit, she didn't seem fazed at all from the stormy expression on the man's face. "Fujiwara-san," she greeted him. "You may go, Ayase-san," she said over Fujiwara's shoulder as Eli turned to go.

"No," he instantly interjected. "She can stay."

Although her back had already been half-turned to the district leader, Eli whipped around to look at the older man. He was at least a head taller than both herself and Toujou and she had to admit that he struck an intimidating figure postured in front of her desk.

"Can I ask what this is about, Fujiwara-san?" Eli noticed that she'd put her usual cheerful lilt to her voice back in her words as she spoke to her chief advisor.

"Why are you giving ordinary citizens access to sensitive information?" he asked without preamble. Eli furrowed her eyebrows at the harshness in his tone.

"I believe that is between Ayase-san and myself, Fujiwara-san," Toujou replied delicately.

"With all due respect, Toujou-sama, it absolutely is _not_ ," he responded instantly. "The reasons that citizens aren't allowed access to the city's database are very simple."

Toujou finally stood up. Barely matching his nose in height, there was a glint of something what Eli suspected might've been anger in her green eyes as she met his gaze equally. "I am aware of this city's regulations, Fujiwara-san. But as I've already told you, this isn't any of your concern."

Eli could almost see the fury building up in the older man as Toujou dismissed his concerns nonchalantly. "You could have hired anyone. _Anybody._ In fact, I gave you a list of recommendations to look through—all of the people on that list would have had the sufficient skills to do the things you're asking. Why, exactly, did you choose _her_ , when her price of cooperation was so high? I've known you since your father and I became friends, Toujou-sama. Your behaviour is out of line. He would be ashamed of what you're trying to do already, and—"

"That's enough." Toujou cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "I don't believe I have to justify my actions to you, Fujiwara-san. I've already explained my reasoning to you, and unfortunately, it's nobody's fault but your own that you cannot accept it. If that's all you came in here to say, then I'm afraid I don't like what you're implying." Her voice still carried the same sweet undertones that Eli had come to associate with her manner of presentation, but Toujou's expression was far from amused.

Fujiwara glared at the purple-haired young woman for a few more heartbeats, but Eli guessed that even he didn't have the nerve to defy her twice. He pushed past her on his way out the door when Toujou didn't react. "Watch yourself," he growled quietly at her as he passed. "Because I'll be watching you."

He slammed the door shut after him.

"I apologize." Toujou's voice came from behind her, her tone losing its pleasant, playful quality.

Eli didn't say anything for a few long moments, the advisor's words echoing in her mind as she thought them through. "Did he… really give you a list of recommendations?" The question slipped out before she remembered who she was talking to.

Toujou didn't seem to mind, however. "He did. But as I already explained to you, I had my reasons for my choice."

She took a breath, about to say something, before Eli thought about it and closed her mouth. She made her way towards the door as well, but her fingers had barely brushed the doorknob when Toujou spoke again.

"If you don't mind, Ayase-san, I have a question for _you._ "

She paused. "What is it?" she asked hesitantly.

"Ayase Alisa-san is your younger sister, isn't she?"

Every muscle in her body seemed to freeze—the question was like a physical blow. Even now, years later, she was still unaccustomed to the amount of pain that one sentence was able to bring, and Eli had to swallow a few times before she found her voice.

"Yes," she finally replied, before opening the door to leave, eager to get away before Toujou could ask her any more soul-searching questions.

* * *

But, as things turned out, she wouldn't be able to stay away from Toujou for long—the district leader had scheduled her meeting with the other district heads of Japan for that afternoon. Fortunately, Eli had already been able to pass off the new security program she'd written for her off to her new tech team. _Un_ fortunately, that didn't grant her a recess from Toujou's latest meeting.

When Eli arrived at the conference room, however, it was mercifully nearly empty, as most of Toujou's advisors hadn't arrived yet. There were the customary security guards that lined the blackened windows, and she made a point to stay away from the door as politicians began filing through it. Fujiwara was one of the last to arrive, and he glowered at her from his seat beside Toujou for a minute before turning away.

One of Toujou's aides went up to her and whispered something in her ear; Eli watched her narrow her emerald eyes before nodding. The video screen crackled to life, but instead of the nine other district rulers that she'd expected, there was only one: Tenjoin Ryosuke, the CEO-turned-district-head of Osaka.

"Good afternoon, Toujou-sama," he greeted her, his voice every bit as oily as Eli remembered it to be from the last conference. "Let's cut to the chase, shall we? I'd like to discuss the proposal of a rail gun module with you. As you know, the other district leaders have already agreed with me on its usefulness in eliminating the Ceresis, which is why they won't be joining us today. Because that's the case, I would appreciate your… cooperation."

"I've read your plans, President Tenjoin. Unfortunately, we don't see eye to eye about its necessity."

Eli would've liked to continue to pay attention to the conversation, but something distracted her. She had upgraded several programs within the district building's security system and she scanned them quickly. There were consistent flickers in one of the three sets of cameras in the grounds that was being monitored by one of her programs. It wasn't enough to catch a solid image of anything, which was probably why Toujou's tech team had dismissed it. However, the shadows were consistent enough that it made her suspicious, and Eli didn't dismiss her hunches.

Opening the program in particular, she scanned it, but found no evidence of a breach. As Tenjoin droned on over her head, she tried to pinpoint the patterns in the seemingly random flickers. It was too consistent to be a bug, and she mined the raw data from her security program before opening up her command system to write another.

She was fairly certain it was movement, but if it wasn't triggering anything in the security system itself, then whoever it was was tripping the cameras somehow with some sort of program. Nervous sweat gathered underneath her bangs as she worked. If it was a program, then Eli was confident in her abilities to hack into it—she just had to get on the network they were using.

She decided to check the network monitoring, just in case. Nothing had come up as a red flag so far, but halfway down the list, Eli spotted the same network that Toujou was currently using as her call as a duplicate. There was a chance it was a glitch, of course, but she highly doubted it.

Her own identification program alerted her that it was complete, comparing the addresses of the networks. One of them was indeed the network that was hosting the conference, the other a clever copy. She had to admit it was clever—the address was nearly identical to Toujou's and someone who wasn't paying attention would've dismissed the second network as a glitch and not thought twice about it.

The network itself was easy enough to break into, and soon Eli found herself staring at several camera images, except they were backwards—the viewer into the camera that was supposed to be filming them. She realized with a jolt that someone was in the grounds—or very near it— and dread chilled her to the core when she realized what the person with the program was looking at.

"Get down!" she screeched at Toujou, who looked bewildered to have been interrupted. But her sentence had had its desired effect as Toujou stood up and took a tiny step backwards seconds before a shot punched through the black-out glass of the window, missing her by less than a few inches. It hit one of her advisors in the shoulder and blew a large hole in the wall opposite, sending a spray of broken glass and dust everywhere.

The video conference on the screen cut off immediately as pandemonium erupted.

A second shot rang out only seconds later, dropping one of the bodyguards that had rushed to line up against the broken windows, clearly trying to prevent a hit on anyone in the room beyond. A few of them had pulled out their guns, but Eli knew that their weapons had no chance to outrange a sniper rifle, of which the assailant had to be using. She cast a quick glance in Toujou's direction—the violet-haired woman was being helped by Fujiwara into a somewhat-shielded corner of the room.

She would have to hope that that was enough to keep her safe for the moment; Eli knew she had seconds before the sniper lined up his next shot, using the information he was somehow still receiving from the cameras in the grounds to hide his location at the same time. Using the network access she'd gained earlier, she hacked into his target algorithm program, scrambling the information that he had about target location, temperature and body heat, and wind speed.

Heart pounding against her chest, several seconds had passed before she realized that no more shots were being fired. A cold sweat had broken out over her skin and Eli realized she was trembling slightly, but her marginally shaky outer demeanor was nothing compared to Toujou's as Eli caught a glimpse of the district leader over the heads of the dozens of security guards that had somehow filtered into the room in the aftermath.

There was an unreadable expression in Toujou's verdant gaze as she stared out the window that gave the impression of calm, though from her tense posture and slightly bowed head, Eli knew that there was some sort of inner storm brewing, but she didn't know Toujou well enough to know what it was.

She flinched slightly when Toujou looked up directly at her, the expression in her green eyes changing when their gazes met for a brief moment. It was a mixture of surprise and gratitude, but it only lingered there for a second before Toujou looked away, distracted by the horde of bodyguards and politicians alike.

Eli stood there for a few minutes, wondering if the purple-haired woman had let her composure slip again for the second time in as many weeks.

* * *

Umi gripped her phone tightly as she strode purposefully down the darkened streets of Tokyo's outer district. It had finally stopped raining after a few days, and she'd received a text from Rin earlier that had contained a single line: _The results are back._

She was thankful that the tightened security around the city hadn't held her up for too long at the waterfront—there seemed to be an inordinate amount of soldiers patrolling the city ever since the disastrous district meeting that had ended with Toujou narrowly avoiding assassination. She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, but at least the extra security—at least for her—only served as a mild disruption of her daily activities.

Umi's boots crunched on the dusty gravel of the unpaved roads as she neared Rin's shop. It was almost pitch black; there were a few flickering street lights that miraculously still worked despite not having been maintained for nearly ten years that provided minimal lighting, but the darkness suited her just fine, especially given the nature of tonight's trip.

There was a single light still on in Rin's shop as she neared it, and Umi hesitated for the slightest moment before she pushed aside the burlap flap.

Rin was sitting on her stool, one of her cats in her lap, obviously already waiting for her as she stroked the white cat's fur absent-mindedly. Umi could almost see the anxiety that rolled off the orange-haired woman in waves as she approached.

She brushed the cat off her lap and shooed it away as Umi stopped at the counter, resting her hands on its surface. No words between them were exchanged until Rin drew out the evidence bag from underneath the counter and placed it on the glass surface. "Well?" she asked, impatience and apprehension making her words shorter than she intended them to be.

When Rin spoke, there was none of the usual exuberant excitement in her voice and Umi noticed that she had dropped her customary cat imitations in her speech. "Umi-chan, where did you get this?" she asked quietly.

"It doesn't matter," she muttered, unwilling to give Rin that information—not because she didn't trust Rin or didn't want to, but because she knew that information of that sort could be dangerous.

Rin gave her an uncharacteristically concerned look out of her hazel eyes, but didn't press the issue. "This bullet is from a 0.50 calibre heavy machine gun. My contact at my dad's company ran it through their database. As far as I know, nobody in Tokyo makes machine guns of that calibre anymore, which is probably why it doesn't have any identification."

Umi narrowed her eyes as Rin continued, dropping her voice. "Umi-chan, you saw the news about Toujou-sama the other day, right? The district government and police department contracted my dad to look into the bullets they got from the district building. They're the same as this one."

Umi felt the fingers of her hands tighten as she processed the implications of that statement. "So… it's the same person."

Rin nodded solemnly. "Or at least using the same gun."

Umi scrunched the thin plastic bag into one of her hands and stuffed it in her jacket pocket. "Thank you, Rin."

The other woman eyed her seriously as she turned to leave. "Umi-chan, I don't like where this is going."

Umi turned her head to look back as she paused by the doorway. "No," she replied. "Neither do I."

A chilly breeze had picked up as she stepped out, and she noticed that storm clouds were gathering in the distance again, promising more rain for the coming days. Umi kept her pace brisk and her collar up around her neck as she walked, one hand on the bow strapped to her back in case she ran into someone she didn't want to; she could never be too careful this late at night.

Halfway through her silent trek back through the outskirts, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Prying fingers stiff with cold off the strap of her bow, she pulled it out and placed it to her ear, wincing at the temperature of the metal casing. "Hello?"

"Umi, it's me." Eli's voice was slightly crackly because reception in the outer districts tended to be flaky at best.

"Eli? Wait. I haven't heard from you at all since—are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but I don't have time to chat right now. Listen, Umi. Are you willing to take on a job?"

* * *

 **Notes:** Welp, I know there wasn't any tomato in this chapter but I _promise_ Maki's role gets (way) bigger later in the story. I hope I handled everyone's ~feelings~ ok in this chapter lol - someone let me know if parts of this make no sense. I felt like I could've explained them a bit better since I figured out headcanon works a little different translating onto paper.


	5. So, Thank You

**Notes:** I was so tempted to name this chapter Garasu no Hanazono but I restrained myself.

 **Chapter Title:** Dakara, Arigatou (だから、ありがとう _lit. So, Thank You_ ) - Nanjou Yoshino

* * *

" _When you've seen as much death as I have, there comes a point where you stop wondering if it was painful—if there was nothing that you could have done. For those who don't—or can't—know, it's the loneliest feeling in the world: the realization that there is nothing left driving you forward but anger and the cold desire for revenge._

 _It's at that point you wonder whether you're even more alive than the Ceresis themselves. If there's nothing in your life but death and fighting, where are you supposed to draw the line?_

 _When I met Kotori again for the third time, she quoted a poem to me. I don't remember the words exactly, but it said something along the lines that selflessness, loyalty, and love were the only things I needed to live a meaningful, well-lived life._

 _It took me a long time to understand her words and why she'd said it. It was okay to be angry. I just couldn't let that stop me from living." —Sonoda Umi_

* * *

Maki chewed on the end of her pen as she watched the news over her line of samples. It had taken her quite awhile to grow these particular Ceresis tissues and she was eager to finally restart her research after the distractions of the past few weeks. She took the pen out of her mouth, snapped on a pair of latex gloves and loaded a few microlitres of Namidite-based fluid into a pipette.

" _In a press conference leak this morning, it has been revealed that Toujou-sama has summoned all interested private military corporations and bounty hunters of Tokyo alike to a meeting."_

She snorted inwardly; Maki had little doubt as to what the contents of that meeting were as she carefully squeezed out the droplets of liquid onto the tissue sample. The site of contact instantly shrivelled, but it wasn't enough to completely eradicate the area of infected tissue. She scowled, discarding the pipette in a sharps container and fumbling through her supplies for a needle instead.

" _The contents of the meeting are still unknown. However, given the recent events of terrorism within the city of Tokyo, it is safe to assume that it is likely a safety plan being put into place."_

She carefully jabbed the tip of the needle into the second sample. Like the first, the area where the small amount of injected fluid withered instantly, but left the rest of the tissue untouched.

Maki retried both methods with different concentrations of the Namidite fluid, but had no better luck. Putting the rest of her samples back into the incubator, she took off her gloves and rolled them into a ball before she tossed them into the trash. Rolling her chair away from her lab bench and back towards her desk, she pinched the bridge of her nose between both hands, thinking, before she grabbed her abandoned pen to scribble some notes and data down in her clinical notebook.

It wasn't the concentration in the fluid. The amount of Namidite hadn't affected the results enough to be statistically significant, and for the umpteenth time, Maki wondered if the collective of physicians—herself included— were going about their research in the wrong way. _No. We've searched… and tried everything else. It has to be Namidite. Nothing else works._

But it was impossible to shoot and kill every Ceresis that still roamed the countryside with Namidite based weapons: the endeavour would take decades—decades they didn't have.

 _There has to be a scientific answer to this out there somewhere. I have to believe that._

She looked over her bottles of Namidite solution once more, taking in their bright, coloured hues that differentiated their concentration. They reflected off the bright screens of her computers innocently, as though teasing her for not finding the solution to her problems.

 _Maybe it's the delivery_ , she mused to herself as she unconsciously stood up to pace. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't hear the door of the lab open.

"I'll do it," came Umi's voice behind her, startling her out of her thoughts—she was speaking on the phone with someone. Maki heard the _beep_ as she hung up.

"You'll do what?" she asked without turning around, still leafing through her nearly-filled notebook.

"A job." Umi cast a sideways glance to the news station that was still playing on one of her computers. "Is it already being reported?"

Maki followed her gaze to the image of the reporter on the news channel. "If it's that security job they're talking about, then yes." She raised an eyebrow as Umi set down her bow and arrows on one of her metal gurneys, pulled out the other rolling chair from underneath the desk and sat down on it, perching herself at the very edge of the chair, her posture no less tense than it had been than when she'd been standing.

Maki crossed her arms, waiting for an explanation. When one didn't come, she sat back down on her own chair. "So what's the deal, Umi?"

Her blue-haired friend was silent for awhile before she pulled something out of the inside of her jacket pocket. Maki recognized it instantly as the bullet taken from the man who had died at the scramble, down to the evidence bag that the police department had put it in.

"Rin identified this," Umi started as she placed it on the table gingerly, as though it would explode if she handled it too roughly. "It doesn't match anything in Tokyo's database." Her voice was subdued as she continued. "They found the same bullets in the district building last week."

Maki felt her breath hitch in her throat for a moment. "So…"

"So it's either the same person, or they're using the same gun. It's not a good thing, either way, but that's not all of it. Though you should probably give this back to the police department." Umi pushed the plastic baggie over to her.

Maki took it and put it in the front pocket of her lab coat, raising a finger to twirl at a lock of dark red hair as Umi went on. "Eli called me. The meeting that the district held today isn't a security job. Based on the information that the police department and district security got from last week, they did some tracing. Someone's managed to build a factory outside the fence walls down by one of the old piers across the bay and judging by the emissions, it's a weapons factory."

Maki knitted her brows together in disgusted surprise. "And how come nobody's noticed it before? You'd think someone would've seen it, even if it's the other side of the fence, especially since the private military corporations are out there all the time."

"Nobody was _looking_ before," Umi answered her. "There are a lot of Ceresis down by the waterfront on the other side of the bay and most of the old buildings there should have been locked up."

"Emphasis on _should_ ," she snapped dismissively. "See, this is what I mean, Umi. The government doesn't give a shit about things that are right under their noses until they can't ignore it anymore. They're not even dealing with this because it's the right thing to do; they're dealing with this because someone tried to kill Toujou with a bullet made from outside the fence!" She bridged a hand across her forehead. "So what's their plan? Set up a really high cash bounty so the private military companies and the bounty hunters can throw themselves at it first before they have to waste their precious army resources on it?"

She caught the look on Umi's face even as she said the words. "I knew it."

"Eli thinks someone is sponsoring them."

Maki closed her mouth as the rest of her tirade died on her lips. "What?"

"It takes a lot of money to set up a factory outside the fence," Umi responded grimly. "Not even all of the big companies have those kinds of resources… and they would have to maintain its safety as well as keep it off the radar of the government, at the very least."

Maki narrowed her eyes. She could see it—it wouldn't be much of a stretch for some big arms manufacturer to have a factory outside of the city's jurisdictions. While it was true it would have to be patrolled and guarded at all times due to the Ceresis threat, she could see the benefits to one, despite the efforts that would it would need to keep it a secret. _At least, I wouldn't put it past some of the corporations in this city to try something like this._ "So, why are _you_ going?" she demanded, switching the topic. "On this job, I mean. Or can't you see that this is basically a recipe for something going straight to hell, Umi?"

She saw Umi stiffen the slightest bit at the bitter sarcasm in her words, before the blue-haired woman stood up, taking a breath. "I don't like this any more than you do," she answered. "But if it's already come to this, can you say for certain what will happen in the future? For all we know, ordinary citizens could be next." Her amber expression burned as she continued. "I can't let that happen."

Maki met her friend's gaze with her own amethyst one. She understood—and had a healthy amount of respect for— Umi's sense of justice. It had been the thing that had kept her going in the initial time period after the first Ceresis attacks and had carried forward, even now, eight years later. She knew Umi well enough to know when the blue-haired woman could be talked out of things, but the woman standing in front of her right now was anything but that. There was an ulterior motive, of course, but she could hardly fault Kotori for existing when the brunette was probably the only reason why Umi hadn't given herself a stress—or rage—induced ulcer at the tender age of twenty-four.

"I'm not going to stop you," she finally said, feeling unnaturally embarrassed at the rush of emotions that her memories had brought up unexpectedly. "Just… do me a favour and watch yourself out there, will you?"

* * *

Eli sat on a cool stone bench in the darkened garden, breathing in deeply a few times in the evening air. The scent of heavily perfumed flowers made her nose wrinkle a little, but even so, she much preferred the air outside rather than the still, stuffy air of the district building. Ever since she had discovered that she had access to this particular place, it had become a safe place for her to be alone when she was now surrounded almost daily by the politicians she disliked so much.

She had come outside to clear her head and organize her thoughts; her nerves had felt frazzled and frayed ever since her conversation with Umi, and although Toujou hadn't summoned her for any actual work since, she still hadn't completely processed the events in the conference a week prior.

Whenever she thought back on it, it was as though she'd watched the events as an aside, like she'd been seeing the whole thing from the sidelines from someone else's body. _But I was there. If I hadn't noticed… would Toujou be dead?_ She found that that question haunted her more than she would've liked to admit. Eli didn't have an answer to it and she wasn't a hundred percent sure she wanted one, regardless.

There was also the topic of Toujou's planned assault on the waterfront factory that someone had built outside of the fence, ever since her search of the surrounding landscape had revealed an abnormal amount of emissions down by the abandoned side of Tokyo Bay. Her first instinct at the time had been to call Umi, knowing Umi well enough that she would want in on that particular operation, but doubts had plagued her ever since she'd hung up. _Do I… have the right to push that onto her?_ Toujou had already told her she wanted her in the situation room in case something happened, and Eli knew that she would be able to keep in contact with Umi regardless, but she couldn't help the second-guessing her decision to call her blue-haired friend. Now that there were less than twenty-four hours to go until the start of the operation in question, her anxiety levels were only going to rise.

She pressed her hands together, resting the tips of her fingers against the bottom of her nose as she breathed in, trying to calm the waves of apprehension gripping her stomach, aided by the thoughts that she couldn't seem to banish.

"Do you mind if I sit with you, Ayase-san?" A soft, serene voice jolted her out of her thoughts as Eli looked up, startled.

She found herself staring at the expressive verdant gaze of none other than Toujou herself.

"N-No," she stammered, unable to completely disguise her reaction as the violet-haired woman settled herself delicately on the bench beside her. She made a motion to get up, as was the customary greeting for the district leader of Tokyo, but before she could do so much as move, Toujou gently put a gloved hand on her bare wrist, indicating that the gesture was unnecessary. The contact lasted barely a heartbeat before Toujou removed her hand, leaving Eli to stare at her for a moment before she remembered that she wasn't supposed to stare at the district ruler either, and she quickly averted her gaze.

While looking for something else to look at, she spotted Toujou's security guards hovering in the distance; far enough that they probably couldn't hear what they were saying but close enough to react to any form of a threat she might've posed.

In any case, Eli was suddenly glad for the gathering darkness that would be able to hide the blush that was slowly creeping up her neck.

No words were exchanged between them for several long minutes as the moon slowly crept over the hedges that shielded the district building's private garden, illuminating the flowers that had opened their petals after the early rainy season that had struck Tokyo in the past few weeks. Eli carefully made sure her gaze was focussed on the flowers and not on the woman beside her, less than a foot away.

It was Toujou who broke the silence first. "I… didn't get to thank you properly for last week."

Somehow, when she was outside of her office, Toujou's voice sounded less like the persona she slapped on for politicians and the media and more like an actual living, breathing, person; the slight hesitation in her words was only testament to that fact. There was that same genuine hint to her tone again that wasn't there in any capacity when she was speaking to her advisors.

Eli turned her head and caught Toujou's emerald gaze for a brief moment before looking away again, feeling strangely embarrassed. "It was nothing," she mumbled, swallowing against the dryness in her throat, still fully aware of who she was sitting beside. She could feel her heartbeat beginning to pound against her sternum.

"I mean it, Ayase-san. Not many people would have done what you did… in fact, I'm quite sure that there are a fair many people who would have done nothing on purpose."

The clear, poignant way in which she said the words surprised Eli, even though she knew it shouldn't have. _She may be Tokyo's head of state, but she has absolutely no delusions about her own power and safety._ That realization made her respect for the woman sitting beside her increase by a small margin: there were too many power-hungry corporate heads who believed that their money made them invincible, but Toujou knew exactly where she stood in their current world.

"I'm… sure that's not true," she murmured, unsure of how she was supposed to respond to Toujou's almost dismissive acknowledgment of that fact.

"You and I both know that's not the kind of world we live in, Ayase-san," Toujou replied evenly.

Eli closed her eyes. _I know. All too well._

There was a pause, broken only by the sound of koi splashing in a pond not too far off from where they were sitting.

"It's refreshing, you know?" Toujou said suddenly. Eli half-turned her head to look at the purple-haired woman as she spoke. "If I may, Ayase-san… you're very honest with your feelings. Even when we first met. Your body language might suggest that you're trying to hide your emotions, but your eyes are very expressive." The purple-haired woman stopped momentarily as if to gather her thoughts. "There's nobody around me who actually says what's on their mind, much less lets slip how they're feeling at the moment. You weren't afraid to antagonize Kouchou from minute one, and yet, you didn't hesitate at all to put so much on the line for your sister. Even if I never met you in person, I would have been able to see that you care deeply for the people you love." Another pause. "I would be lying to you if I said you didn't intrigue me from the start."

Eli's blue eyes widened, and she found that she truly had no response to this particular statement. It struck a certain amount of uneasy fear deep somewhere in the region of her heart: she had been right all along that Toujou had a knack for reading people and it bothered her that the violet-haired woman had gleaned so much about her in the short time that they'd spent in each other's presence. But deep down, Eli knew that she wouldn't be able to deny any of it if it came down to it. _She's right, after all._

" _You've intrigued me from the start."_

She didn't know if that statement was supposed to be good or bad.

Quiet settled over them again. Toujou did not press the topic further, and Eli was certain she'd seen the flustered, anxious expression that she was sure was currently decorating her face. A soft breeze had picked up, dislodging several wisps of blonde hair from her ponytail as a chatter of birdsong from a corner of the garden disrupted the stillness. She watched as several white starlings took flight from a grove of trees into the night sky.

Minutes ticked by in absolute silence, and it was a very long time before any sound interrupted it.

"I've been meaning to ask you something, Ayase-san."

Eli automatically opened her mouth to ask what, but Toujou had already continued before the words even made it past the back of her throat.

"It's… awkward, you know? You saved my life, but I'm still calling you by your surname." There was another pause, not because she was using it for effect, but because Eli had the sense that Toujou was genuinely at a loss as to how she wanted to phrase what she wanted to say. She also had the feeling that this was a completely new sensation to the woman sitting beside her, but the problem was that she couldn't find anything to say either; she was barely processing the conversation as it was. There was heavy emotion in Toujou's voice as she went on. "I'm really… indebted to you for what you did. I don't really know how you feel about me, but the fact that you saved my life means something—at least to me. I don't want to discount that by any means. So… would you mind if I called you Eli-san?"

Eli seemed to have forgotten how to react at all—she was so taken aback by the request that the words tumbled past her lips before she had time to actually think through the question; her reaction was only provoked by the fact that there was the realization somewhere at the back of her mind that she was still speaking to the most powerful person in Tokyo. Whether or not it was dark, she knew she was blushing now and she didn't think Toujou would miss something like that. "I-I— N-No, I… don't mind."

Toujou gave her a small smile as she got up, but this time, unlike the first time they'd met, the expression reached her eyes. It wasn't the glass smile Eli had seen her give her advisors and it wasn't shallow playful laugh that she used so effectively in her conversations with other politicians. Eli found that she was surprised she was able to tell the difference.

"You should get some sleep before tomorrow evening," Toujou added softly before she turned to leave, brushing her long violet hair over her shoulders as she walked away.

Eli watched her go, her fingers curling around the cool stone edge of the bench she was still sitting on, her face still burning. She still couldn't understand or completely process what had happened and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Instead, she slowly moved her hands until her arms were wrapped around her knees, the wind tugging at her blonde bangs.

* * *

 **Notes:** Guys, Non-tan's trying pretty hard to tell Eli something but I don't think Eli got it? Ponkotsuchika is pretty cute to write though, not gonna lie. My NozoEli fix for this chapter (and this fic in general tbh) is Nandemo nai ya (なんでもないや lit: _It's nothing/Never mind_ ) by RADWIMPS, from the movie _Kimi no na wa_ (Your Name). If you haven't seen "Your Name" or listened to the movie version of this song (with the lyric translation, even though the music is amazing by itself already), that's my request for this chapter.


	6. Ninelie

**Notes:** I really hoped to finish this by the weekend, but Christmas and being sick makes for an unpleasant combination. I'm all better now though, so I hope Umi fans out there enjoy this upcoming chapter. By the way, happy holidays to everyone! Hope you've all enjoyed them so far. ^^

Also, the quote at the beginning of the previous chapter was originally planned to tie in with this chapter, but I decided to cut it off early. I love how it took me longer to come up with a new quote than it did for me to write half the chapter... LOL. While I'm quite happy with the final result that I eventually came up with, I realized too late that it would've been way more appropriate for Chapter 5. I was tempted to switch them around, but... Oh well.

 **Chapter Title:** Ninelie - Aimer ft. chelly (EGOIST)

* * *

 _"Long ago, when we were little, I promised Alisa that I would be there for her no matter what. I promised her that if she ever got lost, I'd come and find her._

 _At the time, the promises seemed almost weightless, and I spoke them without thinking as I held her hand while she blew the seeds from a dandelion stem. But now, they couldn't be more meaningful… especially because I wasn't able to keep the first one, and I wonder—how much will it cost me to keep the second?_

 _I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid. But I've come too far to turn back now, even if it costs me more than I ever thought it would. I'm sorry, but I can't be sad at the idea of Alisa being alive, with a whole future of endless possibilities in front of her." —Ayase Eli_

* * *

Umi checked the tension on her bow string for what felt like the hundredth time that evening. She resisted the temptation to fidget; outside of Rin's shop, there were too many bounty hunters and mercs that worked for some military company milling around, and their mere presence was enough to make her twitch. While she wouldn't necessarily classify herself as claustrophobic, Umi detested the atmosphere that tended to settle when there were more than just a few bounty hunters gathered in one place.

Fishing in her shoulder bag, she found the earpiece that Eli had dropped off for her earlier in the week. Slipping it into her right ear, she was glad to find that it didn't occlude her hearing as much as she thought it would have. While Umi liked to rely on her own senses and training to complete a job, she couldn't deny that this time, having Eli in her ear would be a huge asset, especially seeing as she would be treading into uncharted territory… literally.

A crowd, formed mostly out of mercs sitting on military vehicles, though she spotted some bounty hunters here and there, was already beginning to form just at the entrance of the gate, all clearly eager to be the first ones to charge out beyond the fence to claim the prize that the government had set for them.

For them, the hunt was only part of the thrill. Even the monetary reward that accompanied a successful mission paled in comparison to the bragging rights that they would obtain. It was precisely that attitude towards the Ceresis that made Umi utterly despise other bounty hunters and mercs alike, but it would never be safe enough in Tokyo for her to voice those thoughts aloud.

She hung towards the back of the mob of people, preferring caution over charging into things headfirst. She didn't absolutely need to be the first one out the gate, and it was probably better if some idiots got themselves killed over something stupid so she could scope out what, exactly, she was going to be up against. She fingered for her cellphone tucked away into the wide strap that kept her quiver of arrows strapped to her back, turning it on.

Someone bumped her roughly from behind, and Umi whipped around only to stare into the arrogant brown gaze of none other than Satou Fubuki.

"Evening, Sonoda," he greeted her, fingers of his left hand drumming against the handle of his sword, clearly having run into her on purpose. "Here to join in on the fun? I thought you were above this kind of work nowadays. Or am I wrong?"

She merely coldly held his gaze, knowing that any sort of justification she gave to him—not that she wanted nor needed to—would only give him ammunition.

Her silence only seemed to fuel him further as he laughed in her face. "So you're actually here to play. Well, I sincerely hope you have some fun out there tonight, Sonoda. But remember, I'll get there first." Although a grin was still etched on his face, she knew him well enough to know that he was serious, at least about the last sentence.

She watched him walk away, shoving aside another merc on his way to push himself to the front of the crowd, as the edge of a full moon finally peeked above the line of the fence, outlining the ruts in the dirt road that led out of the district in silver light. There would be no Edenra victims in the vicinity of the gate tonight—the presence of a large amount of armed bounty hunters and military corporations was enough to make even the bravest of them stay away.

The time on the illuminated screen of her cell phone ticked to 2200, the scheduled start of the operation, as Umi heard the tell-tale sound of the gate being opened. The roar of noise at the front of the crowd only served to confirm this fact as she stood still, waiting for the rest her unwanted company to leave before she slipped out of the fence.

She had already loaded a pre-Edenra map of the surrounding area onto her phone that before leaving, although the landscape was bound to have changed in the eight years that it had lain untouched, mostly by nature slowly creeping up to reclaim what had once been part of a bustling metropolis. Umi slipped the phone back into her pocket as she entered the silence of the forest beyond the fence, the distant sounds of other bounty hunters and military vehicles already fading away.

Footsteps silent in the undergrowth, she followed the main path that had been trampled into the forest floor for awhile, wincing when the sound of explosives echoed through the trees up ahead barely ten minutes into the operation. _Idiots._ She ducked into the shadows of the trees when she reached a small cliff. There was a little-used path that she knew quite well that would take her fairly close to the waterfront in a relatively short period of time, although Umi already knew that she did not want to be the first one into the factory.

She removed her bow from the strap on her back and loaded an arrow onto it as she continued onward. Most of the Ceresis in the immediate vicinity of the expanding fence had been eliminated, and while there was a relatively low chance that she would run into one for the time being, she did not intend to be caught off guard.

Her earpiece crackled to life. "Umi? Can you hear me?" Eli's voice filtered through the tiny speaker. For a place with almost non-existent reception, her voice was surprisingly clear.

"Yes," she replied, and she heard the click of keys being tapped in the background on the other end. "Where are you calling me from?"

"The district's command headquarters," came the reply. "I'm supposed to be monitoring the operation's progress, as well as being prepared to break into any security that you might run into along the way."

She crept forward in the undergrowth, past a patch of wildflowers waving gently in the late June night breeze, scanning the area carefully before she started down the small incline that would eventually lead to the waterfront. _So that's what she meant when she said she would be in contact._ "Wait. Are you even allowed to be calling me personally?"

There was a slight scuffle of static on the other end—Umi imagined Eli shrugging. "I have to be in touch with _someone._ It might as well be someone I know and trust."

Umi hmm'ed a response as she made her way around several large, cracked boulders. The area she was currently in had once been part of the park that lined Tokyo Bay, the broken stone and craters merely a small product of the amount of explosives the army had used in a final, desperate attempt to reclaim Tokyo Bay before retreating back into the part of the city that they had managed to save. On a normal night, the thought would have made her wistful, but tonight, she was glad that there were no buildings or other run-down apartments to slow her down: it had been a Ceresis hiding in a deserted alleyway during Bloody Valentine that had caused Rin to tear the tendon in her ankle that had permanently crippled her.

The sound of gunfire erupted up ahead as the forest was illuminated once in a flash of firelight before it was extinguished. She narrowed her eyes—gunfire could only mean that whatever military group or bounty hunter ahead of her had run into some Ceresis. Senses immediately alert, she slowed down, making sure to press each footstep into the dirt to muffle any extra sounds. She didn't dare say a word even though she would've liked to confirm that fact with Eli, keeping her mouth pressed into a thin line, in case there was another Ceresis around that was close enough to hear her voice.

Creeping through the undergrowth, half-bent to avoid low-lying branches, she made her way towards the source of the sound. There was a burst of birdsong as a flock of crows exploded into the night sky, and Umi grimaced: noise of any kind was sure to attract any Ceresis in the area. She increased her pace by the tiniest amount—there were voices up ahead.

She peered around a strand of trees to spot three heavily-armed mercs standing in a circle around a dead Ceresis, the sound of their conversation carrying in the silent forest. Not wanting to be spotted alone, she located a suitable tree not too far away from her. She scaled it quickly, hiding herself in the darkness of the summer leaves as she looked down on the three men gathered in the small clearing.

"Easy," one of them was saying. "Now where the hell is that factory?"

None of them seemed to have a map with them as they surveyed the area, continuing to talk in loud voices. Umi bit down on her lip in order to stop her instinct to tell them to be quiet—as much as her sense of duty would have wanted her to say something, her instinct for self-preservation won over.

After a few more minutes of arguing, the three of them set off in the completely wrong direction, back into the thick of the woods. Umi waited until their voices had completely faded into the night before dropping down from her perch, landing almost soundlessly on the dead undergrowth. She pulled out her phone, wincing at the sudden, bright illumination of the screen as she checked her map, making sure she was still on the right track.

There was an old park walkway not too far from where she was that would be relatively free from bushes and overgrown hedges, but that meant being out in the open, a prospect she did not like at all, especially given the sound of gunfire coming from up ahead, echoing off the choppy waters crashing against the abandoned beachfront in the distance. But it _would_ be the quickest way down to the waterfront, and Umi weighed the benefit of time against discretion. Her sense of caution won out in the end, though, as she ducked under a half-fallen tree to stay within in the forest, but close enough to keep the almost overgrown path in sight. It was more difficult than she had originally imagined—flowers, weeds and an assortment of grass alike poked through the cracked concrete and at certain points obstructed the walkway completely, even though there was a full moon that offered adequate lighting otherwise.

The road sloped steeply downward as she approached the beach area, both hands still on her bow and arrows as she emerged at the hilltop. From here, she could see the moonlight reflected off the restless waves, and picked out the dark tops of buildings behind a rusted chain link fence. Occasionally, a staccato of gunfire broke the otherwise unworldly silence that had settled over the forest, and Umi narrowed her eyes when she heard the familiar screech of a Ceresis echo off the building walls.

A rustle in the bushes behind her caught her attention and she whipped around, bow already raised into position as she turned. A man stumbled out of the undergrowth and she took an involuntary step backwards as she took in his appearance. He was wearing a typical military garb, but it was stained with dirt and blood, torn in several places. Umi recognized the uneven, jagged cuts that were consistent with Ceresis claws and realized that it was already too late for him: she could make out the marred, darkened flesh that was beginning to spread from where he'd been initially been slashed.

While the speed of Edenra's progress varied between different people, the man in front of her had clearly been unfortunate enough to have the virus nearly take over his body almost right away. There was a guttural moan that was dragged from his lips as he raised a hand towards her, pupils in his eyes constricted in some final spark of emotion she couldn't read in the darkness.

Umi released her grip on the arrow she had loaded into her bow as he took another step towards her.

The point of the metal arrow buried itself in the man's temple as she watched the Namidite in its head dissolve the broken flesh.

 _Rest in peace_. Umi pressed her hands together once in a quick prayer for a few heartbeats before turning away.

She didn't have time to mourn for mercs that weren't smart enough to keep themselves alive in unfamiliar territory, and she pushed him to the back of her mind as she half-ran, half-skidded down the hillside, glad for once for the long grass that concealed her less-than-stealthy approach to the waterfront.

The sound of fighting here was louder, and she could actually hear the sound of weapons hitting the chain link fence as she neared the old warehouse district by the bayfront. She scanned her immediate vicinity quickly, but found no movement.

There was a dusty dirt path that looked too worn and well-used for it to be eight years old, and Umi furrowed her eyebrows at the fresh boot prints in the dirt. She pressed the earpiece in her right ear, hoping that Eli hadn't hung up on her in the time she'd been silent. "Eli."

There was a small crackle of static. "I'm still here."

"You're right," she reported, keeping her voice down though she was still mostly concealed by the trees. "Someone's definitely down here."

Eli hummed a response, and Umi could hear the clicking of keys in the background. "Are you in?" the blonde asked her a few seconds later.

"No," Umi replied. "I'm looking for a way in now, but I'm not the first one to make it here."

"Stay off whatever main path you find," Eli warned her. "I'm still trying to get access to their site map."

Umi acknowledged her statement with a grunt as she kept to the undergrowth, peering over the bushes every few seconds to check where she was going. In the gaps in between the otherwise dark buildings, she occasionally spotted the bright flash of an overhead light. Power was scarce in the outskirts of Tokyo to begin with—the fact that power had been hooked up to the old warehouse lights meant that there was absolutely no doubt that the old factories were inhabited, as any area outside of the fence hadn't been maintained in the eight years since it had been abandoned.

As she rounded a corner, Umi spotted a group of mercs and bounty hunters gathered around a particular spot in the chain link fence. They seemed to be arguing, as she crept closer to overhear their conversation. She could already spot Satou Fubuki at the very head of the crowd, towering over the other men in the group.

"Get this damn fence open now!" one of them was yelling, and the corner of her mouth twitched in a scowl—surely they were smart enough to know that loud voices would only attract unwanted attention?

Satou shoved aside a smaller man as he squared up to the merc who was standing in front of the fence with his company. "Who gave you the right to order us around?" he snarled back.

Out of the corner of her eye, Umi spotted movement in the darkness.

Glancing around quickly, she looked for a convenient place to conceal herself. The trees here were too low and thin to hold even her lighter weight, and the undergrowth wouldn't conceal her for long if it the motions belonged to Ceresis.

The only structure that would be sufficiently tall enough for her to avoid an initial swing of a claw—or a weapon if it came down to it—was an old guard booth stationed a little bit away on the remains of what had once been a paved road. It would partially conceal her from anyone looking in her direction due to the trees that both shielded it slightly as well as blocking out the moonlight from above, but it wouldn't hide her forever.

But she supposed it was better than nothing, and Umi winced as she stepped on a twig in her haste to cover the thirty or so feet of distance. However, the men gathered at the fence didn't react to the sound of breaking wood, presumably still too preoccupied in their shouting match to make it into the factory district first.

She swung herself up on top of the security tower in three quick motions—the small structure was really only big enough for one security guard to stand or sit in at a time, and she felt a small twinge of relief when the stone withheld her weight as she positioned herself in a crouch on its roof, bow in one hand, the other pressed against the cold stone, ready to draw an arrow if the situation called for it.

The unearthly, unmistakeable screech of a Ceresis—or multiple Ceresis—cut through the babble of noise at the gate entrance, and Umi watched as the half a dozen mercs and bounty hunters instantly drew their weapons, but it was already too late: the Ceresis moved with surprising agility as it emerged from the woods, swiping at one of the mercs and catching him in the shoulder. Umi felt every muscle in her body tense: Ceresis screeched to signal others who were in the same vicinity. _Soon, there's going to be more than one of them here._

She cast a quick glance over to the chain link fence; from where she was crouched, she couldn't determine if it was Namidite or not, but even if it was, an armed patrol was necessary even along Tokyo', so the fact that guards from inside the fence were strangely absent meant that they had been warned about this particular assault. As uncomfortable as that made her, she could see the ingenuity behind it: the Ceresis and the mercs could fight it out before any of them even made it into the facility.

Satou Fubuki shoved a stumbling merc out of the way before swinging his sword across the chest of the first Ceresis just as two more staggered out of the forest. One of the other bounty hunters dove for cover behind a stray rock as the Ceresis converged, missing several shots into the forest beyond. Standing up in order to get into a better position to aim, Umi loaded an arrow onto her bow, but paused just as she was about to shoot, struggling with her inner instinct to help the people who needed it, even though she knew that the group of mercs gathered by the fence did not deserve her help in any capacity.

One of the newly arrived Ceresis was dropped relatively quickly as another merc shot it in the head, and Umi felt the her fingers tighten on the metal of her bow as the third one sank the claw of its deformed left hand into the body of a bounty hunter before being cut down by Satou.

There was a brief moment of silence before a final gunshot rang out. Umi closed her eyes for a moment, knowing what the merc's company would require him to do. For a brief moment, she felt a pang of regret, knowing she could've intervened but chose not to.

 _You can't save everyone, Umi-chan. There're people out there who can't be saved, no matter how hard you try._

Kotori's voice echoed in her mind and Umi shook her head once.

Satou gave the chain link fence an angry kick. The metal rattled loudly in the disquiet as Satou stalked away, the remaining two mercs and single bounty hunter in tow, clearly fuming and determined to find another entrance since he couldn't wrest the lock from the gate. Umi spotted a rounded, cylindrical shape in his left hand as he passed her hiding spot.

He rounded a corner and disappeared from sight. Umi held her breath, unwilling to move before she was sure that there was nothing else alive in her immediate vicinity. She dropped down from the security booth and followed them at a discreet distance, taking care to conceal her footsteps in the fallen leaves underfoot. Long minutes passed in silence as she made her way through the forest, following the fence line. Briefly, Umi wondered what, exactly, Satou was looking for and wondered if it was worth her time to even follow him, but her caution won her over: it would be suicidal for her to attempt to force her way through the fence alone, especially if she could obtain valuable information about the facility this way.

She spotted flashlights up ahead as Satou's group met with a larger gathering of mercs, all inspecting a section of fence that was stone instead of metal. She spotted Ceresis bodies lying on the ground nearby. They seemed to be trying to force their way through it, and Umi warily kept her distance, wondering just how much longer the mercs planned to attempt to be discreet, especially given the very obvious lack of guards along the fenced perimeter.

Her prediction came true within minutes as one of the bounty hunters—along with Satou—pulled out what she assumed was a grenade, and moments later, heard the telltale _boom_ of explosives. Immediate gunfire answered the sound of the grenades as guards over on the other side of the fence opened fire.

She stood there for a moment, watching the fight break out and knowing she had absolutely no desire to throw herself into that particular fray before an idea came to her. Turning on her heels, she broke into a run, fairly confident that the obvious sound of combat was enough to draw away any unwanted presences as she quickly headed back the way she came.

"Umi?" Eli's voice came over the earpiece—she had almost forgotten she was there. "You okay?"

Up ahead, Umi caught sight of the locked gate in the fence, innocently illuminated in the moonlight. "I'm okay," she breathed out. Slowing down to a fast walk as she neared the gate, she approached it cautiously, senses still on alert for anything that might be tailing her.

There was an electronic pad that had clearly been recently installed in the fence that held the links of the metal closed, clearly the subject of Satou's frustration with it. "Eli," she hissed into her earpiece. "I'm at a locked gate, but it looks like I can get in from here."

A few taps came from the other end. "Okay," was the reply. "Can you see any wires that power it?"

Umi looked the fence gate up and down, noting the thin coating of liquid Namidite that had been brushed over it. She spotted a thick wire that protruded from the ground that connected to the base of the electronic lock. "Yes."

"Take out that wire piece I gave you, and wind it around the wire from the lock," Eli instructed her.

Fumbling in the strap that held her quiver in place on her back, Umi finally found the two pieces of equipment that Eli had left her, with explicit instructions on how to use them. Locating the thin piece of wire, she carefully wound it around the one that powered the lock. "Is this okay?" she asked, carefully keeping the volume of her voice down in case the lock was voice activated.

There was a moment of silence on the other end, and then Umi heard her blonde friend crack her knuckles. "Perfect. Give me a moment."

Exactly three seconds later, the red light on the screen of the lock winked green, and Umi pressed her shoulder into the linked metal barrier, expecting the chains to creak as it opened. But it opened soundlessly, and she closed it behind her after carefully scanning the outside area once to make sure she wasn't being followed.

She crept into the deep shadows provided by the bulk of the warehouses, one hand gripping her bow tightly. She could hear the continued sound of gunfire in the distance as the mercs tried to brute-force their way into the warehouses, and Umi could only hope that the action at a different section of the fence was enough to draw attention away from the fact that she had entered from the back.

There was the sound of furious typing from her earpiece as Umi pressed a hand to it. "I'm sending you the layout for the facility to your phone now," Eli said over the speakers.

A moment later, her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out, quickly scanning the layout of the warehouses. She could see where security had located the mercs who were trying to fight their way through the front of the facility, and she picked out the locations of the various factories that had been established. "This is pretty sophisticated," she muttered as she peered around the corner of the warehouse.

"I know," Eli agreed.

Seeing no one and presuming all the guards had been summoned to deal with the mercs and bounty hunters, Umi stepped forward, wincing and shielding her eyes from the bright glare of the warehouse lights. "Can you get into their data yet?"

She heard a few clicks on a keyboard. "No. They were smart enough to keep their security and data networks separate. You have to get into their server room." As Umi carefully made her way forward, she could hear Eli talking to someone in indistinct words on the other end of the line—it sounded like she had put her hand over the mic on her end.

Using the map that Eli had sent to her phone, she tried to avoid what looked like the bigger avenues for the warehouse district, trusting the sound of the waves crashing against decades-old concrete and gunfire to mask the sound of her boots on pavement.

There was a crackle of static in her speakers as Eli removed her hand. "Umi. Whatever's happening at the other side of the facility is starting to draw in Ceresis to the area. _Hurry_."

"Got it," she said as she raised her bow, arrow already loaded into it as she crept forward, catching the sound of footsteps and voices around the corner just in front of her. She paused at the edge of the shadow cast by the end of the building, tense as she waited for the pair of guards to approach.

"The president's ordered an evacuation," one of them was saying to his friend. "Obviously he's already long gone on his hovercraft."

"Shouldn't we be going too?" the other one asked. "Delta squad reported a lot of mercs where they blew the wall, and that's bound to attract Ceresis."

"Ceresis we can handle," the first one replied, his voice growing louder as they neared where she was hiding. "But I don't want to run into government funded mercs—do you? We'll just wait till the other squads have mostly cleared out where the mercs are coming from, then run for it. Who cares about guarding the president's data anyways? It's not like he's cared about us in the whole time we've worked here."

Umi raised an eyebrow as she heard the last sentence. "Really now," she muttered under her breath to herself as the footsteps drew close, painting shadows on the lit pavement as the two guards came close to rounding the corner.

The first guard was kicked under the chin by her boot before he understood what was happening—the blow sent him reeling back, clutching the bottom of his face as the second found himself staring down the tip of an arrow almost touching the bridge of his nose. He stumbled backwards, dropping his gun in his panic as Umi took a step forward, keeping her bow raised in position.

The first guard looked between her and the gun strapped to his waist. Deciding that she could shoot him faster than he could reach for his gun with one hand, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, prompting his partner to do the same.

"Who is the president you're talking about?" she asked, keeping her voice icily calm as she threatened to take another step forward.

"I don't know," the one on the right stammered. "We've never seen him in person before and he only checks in on this site about once a month. I swear, I don't know anything about him."

Umi watched the men's body language carefully. By the way his hand shook as he spoke and the way the other was clenched on the cold concrete below him, she decided that he was telling the truth—or he thought he was, at the very least.

She kicked aside the gun lying at her feet, watching it as it slid over the edge of the pavement and into the restless waves. "Get out of here and don't come back."

The two men did not need any further encouragement; scrambling up and stumbling around the corner she'd been hiding in with surprising speed, the one she'd kicked was still holding his lower jaw as they disappeared into the darkness.

Umi heard a short burst of sarcastic applause behind her and she whipped around, the corner of her mouth twitching into a scowl of disgust as she spotted Satou Fubuki leaning against the wall of a warehouse, sword stuck into the concrete beside him. He smirked at her. "Well played, Sonoda, catching out a few worthless guards. Not going to join in the fun in blowing up the warehouses?" He punctuated his sentence by gesturing behind him, where several buildings already lay in flames. "Or are you here to claim the bigger prize?" He pulled his sword out of the ground and took a few steps towards her.

Umi did not answer him, eyeing him as he approached her slowly. He stopped when he was only a foot away from her, towering over her smaller stature. "I told you before, Sonoda. I'm going to get there first. Don't forget that."

He made a motion as though he was going to spit in her face before he thought better of it; Umi still had her bow in a lowered position and could have easily raised it and claimed it was self-defence. He glared at her for a few heartbeats longer before turning away, stalking in the opposite direction. She watched him go and made sure he was gone before she turned around herself.

"Ass," Eli mumbled in her ear, clearly having heard the exchange.

Umi did not reply, too incensed by Satou to come up with an appropriate response. She checked the map on her phone again, noting with not a small degree of satisfaction that Satou had stumbled off in the wrong direction, leaving her relatively free to seek out the operations room in peace.

She was more cautious now that the sound of flames in the distance drowned out some of the softer sounds that could have signalled an enemy, and Umi made sure she was positive no one was waiting to ambush her as she rounded each corner.

The warehouse district's operations room was located at the very back of the compound, a small, two-storey structure that was oddly abandoned. Umi hesitated for the briefest moment before she kicked in the flimsy metal door, which crumbled under the weight of her boot. She pressed her back against the outer wall, but no security guards came running.

Poking her head in the doorframe, all she saw was a long hallway lit by aeroplane-strip lights, winking innocently at her in the darkness. The door to each room was closed, and as much as she would have liked to, Umi knew she didn't have the time to search all of them.

The server room—also completely abandoned—was located on the second floor, computer screens still blinking in screen-saver mode as she entered. There was a persistent, soft hum that didn't seem to belong there present in the room, but she didn't have time to worry about that at the moment. Umi picked the nearest computer and sat down in the chair, glancing over her shoulder as she did so: the flickering light coming from outside seemed to be intensifying.

Pulling out the second piece of equipment Eli had given her, she smacked the keyboard once, bringing the screen to life. It promptly asked her for a password, but that was what the OSD was for, as she plugged it in. "Eli, go," she hissed into her earpiece.

"Already on it," her friend replied, and Umi could hear the furious clicking of keys in the background.

She kept an eye on the door as the password prompt disappeared and the machine began to boot itself up again.

The hairs at the back of her neck rose when the same unearthly screech of a Ceresis echoed through the small building. She cast a desperate glance at the screen of the computer, not knowing enough about computers to completely understand what Eli what doing. What she _did_ understand though was that she had less than a few minutes to complete her task and get out of there. "Eli, hurry," she snapped, her impatience making her words shorter than she intended them to be.

"I know! I just need… five seconds…" The blonde's voice trailed off as it was drowned by the sound of keyboard keys being tapped in rapid succession. Umi's hand tightened on her bow as she heard the sound of uneven footsteps on the stairs. At best, she would have to fight her way out and cold sweat broke out on her skin at the thought of fighting in the room she was currently in: she held the advantage in wide open spaces that allowed her to pick off enemies one by one slowly, but her bow was substantially less effective in close quarters. She did have a knife tucked into her belt for that specific purpose, but her knife-fighting skills were significantly less developed and Umi did _not_ like her odds in a melee fight with even a single Ceresis.

Eli's voice sounded unnaturally loud in her ear a minute later. "I'm done—get out of there, Umi!"

Umi did not need to be told twice. Vaulting over the computer desk, she heard the shouts coming from outside as she used her bow to smash the closed window, not wanting to take her chances in a dark, enclosed hallway.

The distance down wasn't extremely high, and while Umi wasn't acrophobic, she still hesitated for a single heartbeat before she dropped down, landing on both feet in a crouch, wincing as her gloved right hand dug into a shard of broken glass.

The blaze of fire around her was much louder now as she broke into a run, keeping low with one arm over her nose and mouth to prevent asphyxiation. She ducked around a pair of mercs still battling it out with a Ceresis and buried an arrow in the temple of a Ceresis who stumbled into the avenue.

In the second that it taken her to reload, another one took its place before she shot it down too, past caring about her poor aim in the growing smoke as the warehouse district burned, turning the choppy waters of Tokyo Bay into a mirror that reflected the dancing inferno.

She didn't stop until she reached the forest beyond the ruined chain link fence, spotting the hovercrafts in the night sky. There were too many coming and going at once, and Umi suddenly remembered the security guard's words at the sight of them.

" _The president's obviously long gone in_ his _hovercraft."_

So whoever had owned the factory known then. There was no explanation for it—all in all considered, it had been almost too easy to storm the waterfront warehouses, even if she'd had Eli to get her into the compound without detection.

"Are you still okay, Umi?" Eli's voice came over the speakers again.

She coughed once, trying to dislodge the taste of smoke from the back of her throat. "Fine."

There was a pause. "There's almost nothing in the data that was still on the computer. Whoever it was must've wiped what they could before they left."

Umi tightened her grip on the handle of her bow as she watched a hovercraft touch down to pick up the assortment of mercs and bounty hunters waiting in the forest clearing for extraction, the artificial wind it generated whipping her long blue hair around her. "I'm not surprised," she replied, staring up beyond the burning ash of the waterfront over the dark waters to its very edge, where the slightest hint of dawn was touching the horizon.

* * *

 **Notes:** Fear not, Umi-chan, I know that doesn't surprise you.

I received a request on AO3 to post this on here, so here's what I have so far (working on Chapter 7). There are some inconsistencies with the chapter text between this version and the AO3 version because I did a lot of on-site editing on AO3 in various chapter, but they didn't have an export function that translated well, so I ended up digging up the word docs for all these, which don't have the edits. When I have some downtime, I'll go back and correct all the inconsistencies.


	7. Scars That Won't Heal

**Notes:** Once in a blue moon I'm reminded by someone that I actually have an FFN account and that I should actually post my (long completed) AO3 things on here so I don't look like a lazy bum. Here's the rest of the fic in one go, fam. :*

* * *

 _"I've spent my entire life looking at Tokyo from inside a perfect, sheltered sphere. I grew up in the playground of the rich, and I often stood at the gates of the preparatory academy that I attended, looking out onto the streets of Tokyo beyond, wondering what life outside was like. I never found out, because students were forbidden to leave the school grounds. I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of the 'ordinary' schoolgirls who passed by the academy with awed whispers, before they hurried away from its gates._

 _Even when I was at home, I had people who served me day and night. I'd never been outside to buy anything for myself. In fact, I'd never even seen what the streets of Tokyo looked like outside the glass of a car window. I've never had friends my own age, because the academy I went to wasn't designed for its students to make friends—it was to prepare the daughters of the rich and affluent for the roles they were born into._

 _When I became Tokyo's head of state, I don't think I've ever been more terrified than I was then. How do you begin to rule a city you don't even know?" —Toujou Nozomi_

* * *

Nozomi rested her chin on the backs of her hands as she stared at the door to her office, the polished oak offering her no solutions to her current dilemma. The data that Ayase Eli had managed to obtain off the computer servers of the waterfront factory hadn't given her the answers she wanted—not that she had expected them to. For a group that had somehow managed to construct the factory in question without attracting the attention of a private military company or two, she didn't think they would be so careless as to leave anything behind.

Looking through the datapad, she scanned the inventory lists and production rates over again, but they gave no more information to her than the first time she'd read them. Nozomi pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers, fighting the migraine that she was sure was coming soon. Pushing back dark bangs off her forehead, she mentally prepared herself—she had a meeting with Osaka's head of state in less than thirty minutes and she knew from experience that she needed to at least look like she was in control. Tenjoin Ryosuke may not have looked nor sounded like it, but he had a knack for picking at any signs of weakness and Nozomi had no intention to bow to his indomitable will this afternoon.

There was a knock at her door. "Come in," she called, giving her head a little shake to dislodge the sweaty strands of violet hair stuck to the back of her neck.

Her chief advisor, Fujiwara Hayato, swept in front of her secretary in his haste to enter the room. She noticed that he was as abrasive as usual, barely acknowledging Koizumi before he closed the door in her face. Out of forced habit, he bowed after he stopped in front her desk, but it was cursory at best; he barely jerked his head forward two inches before snapping it back up.

She put on the small, knowing smile that she had been taught her entire life to deal with men thirty years her senior. "Yes?"

"The assault on the factory down by the bay was a mistake," he began without preamble.

"How so?" Nozomi tilted her head slightly to side for effect, slipping easily into the tone that she had also been taught to use; the fake, glass emotions in the subtle lilt provided the false impression that she was nothing more than politely curious, whereas inside, she knew exactly what it was Fujiwara wanted to say.

Even for a man who had known her father for longer than she had lived, Nozomi could never be sure of his intentions. Like her, Fujiwara had mastered the ability to display a limited range of emotions while concealing his true intent; she just didn't choose to include anger and irritation in the list of emotions she chose to display.

"They got away. You've read the reports and the data—there's nothing there. If you'd waited, we could have prepared more. We could have planned a better assault than those incompetent bounty hunters and mercenaries. Instead, by being so hasty, you gave them the chance to get away," he accused her, long past caring about the feigned politeness that most politicians employed when speaking to her. He had employed this particular tone ever since she had inherited her position from her father, on the assumption that she would be as amicable as her father had been with his terms. It hadn't taken him too long to realize that she was far from it.

On a good day, Nozomi might've chastised him for it, purely for the sake of her own personal amusement, but today, she wasn't in the mood for fake manners. She had had enough of those from the senate meeting earlier, in which she knew perfectly well that there were at least a few senators who would've loved nothing better than to replace her with someone who suited their agenda far better. "And if they continued manufacturing weapons illegally, Fujiwara-san? Do the lives of civilians caught in the inevitable crossfire mean nothing to you?"

She purposefully neglected to the mention the bullet that had nearly taken her own life.

"That's not what I meant," he growled at her. "If we'd planned more carefully, we _could_ have caught them!"

"I find that difficult to believe," she replied evenly, purposefully keeping her voice light and non-accusatory. "Based on all the reports that I've received, they were well-rehearsed in case we decided to assault the facility. I don't believe that losing that factory was a major blow to their operations nor did they intend to let their entire operation base fall just because we found a single factory. No, we'll just have to be more vigilant in the future, and continue to monitor operations in the arms sector."

Nozomi could tell the man wasn't completely satisfied with her decision, but he couldn't find another bone to pick with her on the topic, though he was still annoyed. "Ayase did the datamining of the computer in the factory?" he asked her suddenly.

She raised a purple eyebrow delicately at him. "She did."

"And how do you know you can trust her? Wasn't the bounty hunter that got her hands on a computer in their server room one of the people she lives with?"

"That is true," Nozomi acquiesced. "But Ayase-san hasn't given me any reason to doubt her findings, nor did she make any attempt to hide anything from me at the time. Surely it doesn't matter who helped her access the data?"

Fujiwara glowered at her from his spot three feet away from her. Nozomi didn't back down from his angry gaze, however, and settled herself an inch or so back in her seat as she waited for his response. "I still don't understand why you even bother with her," he told her as he tightened the fingers of one hand into a fist, an unconscious motion that did not escape her notice.

Nozomi felt the corner of her mouth quirk into a smile, though the topic of discussion was far from entertaining. "I don't expect you to, Fujiwara-san," she replied sweetly, knowing her tone would only serve to anger him further, though at the moment, she wasn't particularly interested in appeasing his feelings.

The taller man let out a snort as he turned on his heel, though he couldn't resist one last bit of impromptu, unwanted advice as he let himself out. "Don't slip up in front of President Tenjoin later."

She followed the man's retreating back with a slight frown as he closed the door to her office with a snap.

If truth was told, Nozomi was more irked than she thought she would be by how frequently her advisor liked to bring up the topic of Ayase Eli, if only to berate her at every turn for choosing to hire her. She had understood from the start that he had wanted her to hire someone _he_ approved of, which was precisely why Nozomi had gone behind his back to find someone else. The fact that Eli did not work for any of the companies that he approved of was a constant thorn in the man's backside, and it didn't help her case that the young woman in question hadn't been intimidated in the slightest by his usual irascible demeanor.

Which, of course, was what initially had intrigued _her_ the most—but as Nozomi came to learn more about the blonde, she realized that she hadn't been surprised that Eli was someone who cared deeply about the people she loved underneath the icy, recalcitrant attitude.

It was refreshing, and also a big part of what had drawn her so strongly to the young woman, Nozomi mused to herself, as she pulled out a deck of tarot cards from a drawer in her desk. She had grown up surrounded by people who always acted like puppets on a string—trained to say and act in a way that was deemed socially acceptable in front of her, never deviating from a pre-written, pre-calculated script unless there was something they desperately wanted from her. Showing emotion was not part of the life that she had been raised to live, and even now, Nozomi could remember her father's dire warning to her that emotion, or even showing pity, would only make her look weak.

 _"And mark my words, Nozomi, looking weak is the last thing you want to do in the political world."_

She finished shuffling her deck, and set it up, closing her eyes as she flipped over a card.

Nozomi narrowed her eyes at the outcome: the Tower in reverse.

She replaced the Tower back in her deck and put it away just as a timid knock came from the other side of her door. She looked up, wondering who it could be.

Koizumi appeared again a few seconds after her greeting, holding something under her arm as she entered. "T-Toujou-sama," she stammered timidly. "I-I know you have your meeting in a few minutes, but this came back from the investigation team you hired to look into the outer district just now." She held out a large, brown envelope and Nozomi took it soundlessly in suddenly less-sure hands as Koizumi bowed low before leaving the room.

* * *

Nozomi played with a strand of dark violet hair as she settled herself in a large chair. She had been taught never to fidget in the presence of other politicians, but frayed nerves roiled just below the surface as Tenjoin Ryosuke settled himself in the chair opposite her. Although his visage was familiar to her from the numerous conferences that they had held over the years, she had never actually met him face to face.

In person, he looked every bit as much like the snake she'd always personified him as, with purposefully bushy facial hair and a single monocle that was there purely for show.

Since he had stopped in Tokyo on his way back from Sapporo to meet her in person, no one else was present in the room apart from the security guards—in return for not bringing his own advisors, he had requested that hers remain absent as well.

"Toujou-sama," he greeted her, smiling thinly from under his goatee as they shook hands. Nozomi noticed the amount of force he used in the handshake, as though he was trying to crush her slender, gloved fingers in his large, meaty grip. "It's nice to finally meet you in person." His sharp gaze raked her over once, from the single braid arranged down her left shoulder to where the hem of her dress met the floor.

Making sure her face was impassive as ever, Nozomi gave him the tiniest of half-smiles. "Likewise, President Tenjoin."

As meticulously as he was reading her, she had been trained to do the same. He had come here to intimidate her with firstly his larger stature, then with his age and experience. There was the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth when she met his small, beady eyes behind the monocle equally. "As you know," he began, "I'm here to discuss the proposal of a rail gun module with you."

Nozomi tightened her hands in her lap, the fabric of her gloves hiding the motion. "I am aware. But I believe I have already discussed my reasoning for being against it with you previously?"

Tenjoin leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his large paunch. "You lack vision, Toujou-sama."

"How so?" She twisted her head by a small margin innocently in a gesture of mere curiosity and maintained her delicate tone, though she knew Tenjoin detected the ice in her tone the moment she spoke the words.

"We now have the resources to construct a rail gun module and transport it to the moon's surface, so we can target and destroy the Ceresis on Earth. _Do_ explain to me how you perceive that as a bad thing." He made a show of sitting up straight again as he waited for her response.

"But… you don't intend to just target the Ceresis, do you?" she asked him calmly, watching him underneath violet bangs.

He smiled at her—genuine, in the sense that he truly believed in what he was saying. "Ha! We have to consider what will happen after we exterminate the Ceresis. Believe me, _my dear_ , the country that recovers from this disaster first will be a leader in the new world. That's what I'm after."

Nozomi pressed her lips together in a thin line. She'd known for years that Tenjoin was power-hungry, that he only made moderate attempts to make life better for the citizens of his district as well as Edenra victims alike for the sole purpose of staying in power. _But this…_

"I'm afraid I can't agree to that," she said, keeping her voice delicate but firm. "Tokyo doesn't have the necessary funds at the moment to contribute to a rail gun module, much less commit to the program of transporting such a weapon to the moon."

Tenjoin laced his fingers together as he leaned closer to her, resting his chin on his interlocked fingers. "Ah, yes, I forgot. You intend to give those _victims_ citizenship rights in Tokyo, do you not?" He laughed, a bitter, derisive sound that echoed around the mostly empty chamber. "Let me tell you something, Toujou-sama. You cannot possibly placate the needs of those pieces of trash. They'll keep demanding more and more from you, until they'll run over your district again. Or have you forgotten the events of Bloody Valentine already?"

Nozomi fought the frown that was threatening to make an appearance, though slow anger curled in her stomach at Tenjoin's nerve in bringing up Bloody Valentine so casually to her face. "No, I have not," she replied, chastising herself internally when her crisp tone brought a faint smirk to the older man's face. "But I strongly believe that Bloody Valentine would not have happened if this was not the social structure that we have put into place."

"You're living in a damn dream world," Tenjoin told her, mirth evident in every syllable. "I imagine this is why your advisors have such a difficult time with you, Toujou-sama." The corners of his mouth quirked into a wide smile that did not reach his cold, emotionless eyes at all. "Tell me, have you ever been to the outer districts of your city?"

When she did not reply, he laughed again as he got up. "I think it's due time you did so, Toujou-sama. Before you think about raising the social status of those who aren't even human enough deserve it, I suggest you pay them a little visit and see for yourself if it's worth your time and effort. We'll chat more once I'm back in Osaka."

With that, he summoned the three bodyguards he'd brought with him, and showed himself out the door without so much as a backwards glance.

* * *

Eli gripped her phone tightly in one hand as she made her way around knots of people in the streets of Tokyo. After a few long weeks of rain, summer was beginning to take hold of the metropolis, a prospect that normally would've suited her just fine if it hadn't been for the massive demonstration in the streets that day.

Usually, she would've also made it part of her itinerary to _avoid_ demonstrations, but that wasn't possible today as unfortunately, she was headed in the same direction the demonstrators were.

She tried to block out the sound of their chanting as she stuck to the smaller avenues, wondering why Toujou had chosen last night of all times to call her. All Koizumi would say over the phone was that Toujou wanted to see her and refused to give any further details, which only served to increase her anxiety levels; if ruling the district was up to her, her first priority would've been dealing with the rioters protesting just the _idea_ of her latest policy instead of worrying about other things.

As she crossed an intersection, a man slammed into her from behind. Whipping around, Eli almost reached into her boot for her trench knife out of habit. She was about to snap at him before she realized he wasn't even paying attention to her; he was too busy shouting about how the Edenra victims in the outer districts didn't deserve any rights to even notice that he'd run into her.

She snorted, and increased the pace that she was walking at as she neared the district building. Fluffing her messy blonde bangs as she approached, she slipped through the gates once there was an opening in the crowd that was trying to squeeze itself onto the district building's grounds.

She cast them a sideways glance as one of the protestors tried to shove a pamphlet into her hand—scrunching it instantly, she kept that hand balled into a fist as she stalked forwards, keeping her gaze singularly focussed on the door to the district building in front of her, knowing any attention she paid the demonstrators wouldn't end well.

Eli pushed past the horde of people milling at the entrance to the district building and dodged several security guards who seemed intent on searching her before she reached Koizumi's desk. The young woman looked up at her as though she was surprised to see her there, even though she'd been the one to place the phone call in the first place.

"Ah, A-Ayase-san, you're here. I'll just… go let Toujou-sama know. Please feel free to h-have a seat."

The restless twitch in the brunette's movements did not escape her notice. Although it wasn't a large deviation from her usual behaviour, there was something about her skittishness that Eli couldn't put her finger on.

Koizumi got up and turned to make her way down the hall, almost too eager to escape her presence. Eli watched her go, frowning slightly. _Is it just me, or does she seem more nervous than usual?_ She couldn't figure out whether it was because the massive crowd out in the grounds was making her uneasy or something else entirely.

Having no outlet for her own apprehension though, Eli sat, perched on the very edge of the hard plastic, if only to find something to occupy her limbs for the time being. Walking had helped, but now that she was standing still, nervous energy threatened to consume the control she had over her arms and legs.

She didn't realize how tightly she was holding her phone in her right hand until she caught sight of her white knuckles against the metal casing. She forced herself to relax as she waited for Koizumi to return, but it was nearly impossible. Rising anxiety churned her stomach in waves and she could actually feel herself sweating in the balmy air. She didn't have time to chastise herself before Koizumi reappeared, looking more nervous than ever.

"T-Toujou-sama says she can see you right now, Ayase-san," she reported.

Eli got up, grimacing at the way her jeans unstuck themselves from the plastic of the chair, before following Koizumi down the familiar hallway that would eventually end before Toujou's office. She hadn't met Toujou one on one since their conversation in the garden, and the memory of it still made her slightly uncomfortable. Maki had narrowed her eyes in an expression that Eli hadn't been able to read when she had recounted the story to her friends and had muttered something under her breath. _"You better watch yourself out there_ ," the redhead had warned her, poking a latex-gloved finger against her sternum. _"Before Toujou takes advantage of you."_

 _But is that what Toujou wants to do?_ Eli found that she couldn't come to that conclusion as easily as Maki had, and though perturbed her that at least one of her friends thought that way, she had chosen to withhold her own judgment.

For the time being.

Koizumi raised a hand to knock on the wood of Toujou's office as they approached, and a few moments passed before they heard a response. The brown-haired young woman opened the door for her, and took a step back, clearly indicating to Eli that she was supposed to go in.

She took a shallow breath before stepping over the threshold, wincing a little at the temperature in the office as Koizumi closed the door behind her.

Toujou was seated in her customary chair, dressed as usual in a floor length gown, complete with a wide brimmed hat. Given the temperature, it had to be uncomfortably warm in that outfit, but Eli was well aware of the fact that that particular observation was not hers to make aloud.

Motioning for her to sit, the violet-haired woman glanced out the window behind her once before she spoke. "You must be wondering why I called you here today." Her voice was hesitant, but strangely detached, as though she was trying to sound as emotionless as possible.

Eli noticed a brown envelope on her desk that looked strangely out of place amongst the neat stacks of pristine white paper.

Toujou reached for it, opening the flap and pulling something out. "I… received this from the investigation team that I sent to the city's outskirts last night." She held it out; the single sheet of paper was turned face down so that its glossy back was facing the crystal chandelier above them.

Wordlessly, Eli got up, motions almost mechanically robotic, and wordlessly, Toujou handed it to her.

She flipped the photograph over, fingernails digging into the smooth surface.

The image was grainy—it had clearly been taken from a distance sometime at night. The girl in the photograph was talking to someone, hands gesturing to something, but the dull blonde hair that was half-covered by a hood was unmistakeable. The dim lighting in the photograph hid the majority of her features and surroundings, but had managed to catch something else: the bright reflection of a hairpin clipped to the left side of the girl's bangs.

Eli could feel her hands shaking.

The room was almost suffocatingly silent as she stared at the photograph.

"Is… that her?" Toujou's query was quiet, and had it been spoken any other way, Eli might've thought it intrusive.

She willed herself to calm down; the rapid beat of her pulse was suddenly hammering too hard against her chest and her throat felt like sandpaper and cottonballs. "I… think so," she finally replied when she found her voice. "But… I'm not—I can't be sure."

There was a brief pause. "My team offered to take you to where they took that photograph, if you would like."

Eli looked up sharply, hardly remembering how to breathe. "Really?"

Toujou nodded. "Although… I have one request, Eli-san." The syllables of her own name sounded strange coming out of the district ruler's mouth, and she resisted the involuntary response to flinch by biting down on the inside of her lip. She had had some time to get used to the idea, but she still wasn't sure how long it would take for the fact to actually sink in.

"What is it?" she asked after a moment.

Toujou met her gaze with a serious, verdant one. "I'd like to come with you."

* * *

Eli was beginning to regret her resolve not to fidget as she sat in the seat across from Toujou, trying to look anywhere but at the woman across from her. The darkened streets of Tokyo flicked by them in a blur of light and motion; occasionally, loud voices or music would drift in from the curbside, but the words were indistinguishable and did nothing to distract her.

She watched the streets pass by in silence. Eli had never actually ridden a car through downtown Tokyo, and the experience was new to her. Briefly, she wondered if, after a lifetime of looking at the city behind tinted, bulletproof glass, she would care as little about the people that actually inhabited the city as the politicians that currently ruled the city did.

She couldn't resist the brief glance that she cast in Toujou's direction. The purple-haired young woman was not paying attention to her; instead, she too, stared outside the windows at the streets beyond.

 _Are we even looking at the same city outside these windows?_ Eli found that she didn't have an answer to that question.

She surprised herself by breaking the silence first. "Can I ask… Why do you want to come with me?"

She wasn't sure if the question would offend Toujou or not… or if it was even appropriate for her to ask. If she had been asked that particular question a month or two ago, Eli would've told them that the answer was yes. But something had shifted between them since their meeting in the garden; although she wasn't sure of what it was yet, she found that she didn't feel intimidated or awe-struck enough by the woman sitting across from her to withhold it.

Toujou looked up, distracted from whatever thoughts had been going through her head at the sight of an ordinary night in Tokyo now that they had navigated past the demonstrators that were still out on the streets around the district building. She opened her mouth and then closed it, pausing before she finally spoke.

"You're aware of the New Edenra Policy, correct?"

Eli looked down at her hands that she had placed in her lap. "Yes," she said.

"Do you think it's a good idea?"

She glanced up from beneath her bangs, taken aback at being asked that particular question. "I… don't know," she answered truthfully, thinking back to her own, albeit limited, experiences in the city's outer district. She remembered the desperation that had been etched into the faces of nearly every person that she'd run into out there. When it wasn't immediately obvious that she had the means to defend herself, a few of them had been brave enough to approach her, not to ask for assistance, but to actually try to assault her for any valuables she might've been carrying. The sight of the trench knife in her hand was enough to make them back off, but the encounter had left her rattled, so to speak, and she had decided that it was probably in her best interest not to revisit Tokyo's outer district unless absolutely necessary.

 _It's just… hard, when my first instinct is to help them, only to realize that they don't want my help at all. At least, not in the way I can give it._

"I'm not the best person to ask," she clarified quietly, when Toujou held her gaze, clearly expecting a more elaborate answer. "I don't go to the outer districts very often."

"That makes two of us," said Toujou, almost wistfully. Eli noticed she was staring out the window again. "But I _want_ to know. Even after all of these years, there are times when I feel like I don't know this city at all. But I do know this. Once upon a time, we were kin, staring up at the same sky we were born under. What has happened in the past and what may still happen in the future shouldn't change that. That's why I wanted to enact this policy, to give rights to those of us who had no control over our destinies."

Eli looked up, lifting her head this time as she watched Toujou speak. In that moment, she found that she was not surprised at all to hear those words from the young woman seated opposite her. Perhaps it was because she was fairly sure she had seen her without the charismatic mask she usually presented to other politicians and the media alike, but whatever it was, it was the cause of the shift in atmosphere between them. For the first time, Eli realized that she was looking at Toujou with genuine respect.

She had walked into this particular job utterly uninterested in Toujou's agenda, assuming the woman was just like every other politician that strutted through the streets of Tokyo, and it was only now that she realized that Toujou had never been that way at all.

Toujou caught her looking at her and met her gaze. "Of course, my advisors don't agree with me. They tell me that I've spent my entire life shut away behind Tokyo's political doors and that I've never seen what goes on in the backside of this city—that I don't understand what brought about Bloody Valentine." She paused. "That's why I wanted to go with you tonight. I don't want to hear these stories second-hand, or listen to exaggerated half-truths that seem to be all they can tell me. If I'm going to pass this policy, I have to see these things for myself."

Eli held her gaze, reading the intent behind the emerald eyes. "Okay," she said, watching the ghost of a smile flit across Toujou's face at her agreement.

* * *

Summer wind blew gusts of gritty dirt in her face as Eli stepped out of the car, followed by Toujou and several of her bodyguards. An officer, dressed in khakis, was waiting for them a few feet away, hands stuffed in his pockets. Despite the breeze, the night air seemed almost still as Toujou led the way to where the man was standing, unaware of the dust that tangled with the hem of her dress.

He bowed low to her as they approached, before leading the way up a small incline. Eli didn't know the outskirts of Tokyo well enough to know where they were, though she could spot Tokyo Bay in the near distance, its waters glimmering faintly in the moonlight. There were plenty of fallen buildings and loose rubble, but at least the place seemed to be deserted. "This way, Toujou-sama," the man informed her as they continued up the incline, crabgrass and an assortment of other weeds poking up through the cracked concrete.

Once they reached the top, Eli became consciously aware of how exposed they were in the open; even if there were a multitude of collapsed and abandoned buildings around them, she felt her skin prickle uncomfortably. She cast a quick glance back at the pair of bodyguards following them, as well as the one leading Toujou over some rocks—they seemed unconcerned, but the apart from the wind, the night felt too quiet and Toujou seemed too relaxed for someone who had almost been assassinated few weeks ago.

She kept her mouth shut, though, as she clambered over a fallen boulder.

"Here," the man pointed towards his right, stopping behind a large rock that was balanced precariously at the edge of the incline, providing at least some cover for them. "The girl was down there when I took the photograph. I've seen her here a few times in the past, but I wanted to make sure of what I was looking at before sending back a report."

Eli looked down from the overlook, spotting a few lights here and there, their glow too inconsistent to be from electricity. It was enough for her to see by, though, and she could pick out the movements of several people beneath her on dirt-beaten paths.

She heard Toujou come up behind her, but the violet-haired woman did not speak as she too, looked out over the outer district of Tokyo that lay before them. The expression in her eyes was unreadable, and it was impossible to tell what she was thinking as she took in the same sight Eli did.

They stood there in silence for a while, though there was no sign of the person she wanted to find, gazing out into the ruins of what had once belonged to Tokyo, Toujou's bodyguards a respectable distance away from them, though close enough to intervene immediately if there was trouble.

Eli had not expected to find her sister on the first attempt nor was she stupid enough to believe that her search would be over so quickly and easily, but she couldn't help the feelings of frustration that welled up inside her. She quashed them quickly though, tightening the slender fingers of her left hand into a fist.

There was the crunch of gravel underneath boots behind them as a bodyguard approached them. He made a hasty bow in front of Toujou, but it was clear from his face that something was wrong.

"Toujou-sama, we need to go. There's been a massive riot on the streets protesting the New Edenra Policy."


	8. A Little Pain

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** A Little Pain - Olivia

* * *

 _"I've dreamed of the past once. Just once. A past where my father patted me on the head like he always used to do, and told me that I could do anything I put my mind to. It was a warm sensation, but it lasted only a brief moment. One perfect, imperfect second, like the moment a raindrop hovers at the edge of the leaf in a storm, clinging to the tip before it falls, immortal as it spins towards the earth._

 _When I reached for his hand, it was gone._

 _That's the father I choose to remember. I chose to say goodbye to him eight years ago, in the foyer of our home, half-buried under rubble and ash._

 _And then, I had to say goodbye again, at the doors of the state prison. He waved sheepishly at me as they led him through the impenetrable doors behind him. I looked away, wondering why it was so damn hard. That's the funny thing—it gets harder. Every. Single. Time." —Nishikino Maki_

* * *

The sound of a phone—her phone—ringing startled Maki awake. Eyes still firmly shut, she pushed back unruly red hair from her forehead, hand groping in the darkness around her pillows until her fingers finally found its metal casing. Blearily, she opened her eyes, wincing at the bright display. The time read 0113.

She placed the device to her ear."Nishikino speaking."

"Dr. Nishikino?" She recognized the voice—it was one of the residents at the university hospital. "We have an emergency. There's been a massive riot downtown, and they're bringing in a bunch of injured people. We need you to come in."

She stifled an inward groan as she sat up. _Of all the days…_ "I'll be there in ten minutes," she mumbled, hanging up as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, still blinking in the darkness. She stared blankly at her closet door for a few moments before standing up, grabbing the white coat that she'd left hanging off the back of a chair and stumbling into the bathroom.

Combing her hair into some semblance of order, Maki stared for a few seconds at the product of staying up far too late in her personal laboratory before coming home to get some sleep. Scoffing at the puffy lids underneath her amethyst eyes, she turned and closed the bathroom light, making her way out into the hallway.

The door to Umi's room was closed, and no light peeked underneath the doorframe. Maki snorted softly as she glanced the other way, taking in the bright moonlight that flooded the other half of the hallway, because Eli's room was empty and she hadn't bothered to pull the blinds before she'd left. There was little doubt in Maki's mind as to where her other friend was tonight and she sincerely hoped that the blonde in question had taken her warning seriously.

Closing the front door and locking it behind her, she descended the stairs from their apartment quickly as she strode purposefully to the hospital, although the humid night air wasn't in helping her attempts to feel more awake. Fortunately for her, though, the university hospital was only a few blocks away on campus and she squeezed her way through the doors of the emergency department between paramedics, firefighters, and a panicking crowd less than ten minutes later.

Washing her hands thoroughly in a sink in the back corner of emerg, she spotted the resident that called her. Striding up to him, she gripped his shoulder, causing him to start before turning around. "What's going on?"

He looked a little shaken to be addressed so directly, but promptly answered her question. "Someone started a riot during the demonstration." A faint scowl creased his forehead as he continued. "You know how it is after hours when the bounty hunters join in on those demonstrations. It got ugly pretty quickly because someone started a car fire that went through three apartment blocks before the district got it under control."

"So…"

"So most of the patients here are from the residential area. The district and the police took most of the bounty hunters and rioters to General, and they're full, so they sent them here," he informed her.

Maki pinched the bridge of her nose. "Right."

Sweeping out into the back hallway behind the rows of curtains that lined the walls, she was immediately hailed by one of the other physicians to take a look at an x-ray, and soon, Maki found herself buried in the line of work that she had chosen for herself.

She had finished putting in a neat line of stitches on the arm of a young man and told him he could leave, scribbling a prescription for him on her notepad when she decided to grab a drink. Unfortunately, the small university hospital didn't have as many accommodations as the trauma ward in General did, and Maki had to sidle out into the hallway that led into the waiting room for a vending machine.

She had just taken her first sip of water and had been about to turn to go back to the nursing station to talk to one of the nurses about one of her patients when someone seized her sleeve from behind. Whipping around instantly, she found herself staring into the angry red gaze of a short, black-haired woman, obviously a civilian from the way she was dressed.

Irritation instantly flared under her skin. _Does she have no idea what triage means?_ Not only did the twin-tailed woman have _no_ sense of etiquette, she had actually had the nerve to grab her sleeve without letting go. _Who the hell does she think she is?_

"Hey you." The other woman's voice was full of self-righteous indignation. "You're a doctor, aren't you?"

Maki glared at her, already disliking her on principle as she wrenched her sleeve out of her grip. "So what if I am?"

"So you're supposed to help people, right? Well then, you can help my brother!" She pointed to a small figure curled beneath a blanket a few feet away, surrounded by two young teenage girls, each one holding one of his hands.

Maki shifted her gaze from the short woman standing in front of her to the boy, huddled on a chair. He looked pale, and briefly, she wondered who had admitted him, because he didn't look well to her. _On the other hand…_

"Look, it's not like I'm here to just let you jump the line because you wanted my attention. If you think his condition's changed, go talk to one of the nurses at the triage desk."

The other woman wasn't fazed by her irate tone, however, and she squared her small shoulders in front of her. "You _know_ that _that's_ not going to get him seen any sooner. Can't you see he's gotten worse? Are you a doctor, or not? I thought you said you were supposed to be helping people?" Anger blazed in her crimson gaze as she glared back.

For a moment, Maki was too outraged to speak.

"W-What?" she finally spluttered, now genuinely angry. "Of course I am," she snapped back. She wasn't about to admit it, but the repeated comments about _helping_ had stung in ways that the short woman in front of her would never understand. Maki felt the fingers of her right hand curl into a fist. _My father promised to help people too._

Her sense of duty warred with her indignation for several long moments, as she looked again between the boy slumped in the hospital chair, his sisters clinging desperately to his hands, and the twin-tailed woman in front of her.

"Fine," she snarled at last, turning on her heel. She stormed into the nursing station, surprising one of the nurses, who was bent over a datapad charting. "Do we have a spare bed?" she asked, not bothering to hide the exasperated tone in her voice.

The nurse looked up, startled. "Y-Yes, we do, Dr. Nishikino, but there's a patient—"

Maki cut her off. "Give me five minutes, okay?"

Something in her expression must've convinced the nurse, because she closed her mouth and nodded. "Bed 5's free," she told her.

Stalking back out into the patient hallway, Maki beckoned to the black haired woman, who hoisted the boy into her arms. "Stay here and wait, okay?" she was saying the two young teenage girls, her tone noticeably different than when she'd been speaking to her.

Maki didn't have time to dwell on this particular fact though, as she grabbed her own datapad off the desk where she'd left it and opened the curtains to the bed in question, allowing the short woman and her brother to enter first before pulling them closed behind her.

After setting her brother on the bed, the black haired woman retreated to lean against the counter with the sink, crossing her arms, obviously still angry from earlier. Maki ignored her, though her own irritation still prickled against her nerves as she pushed past the woman to put the datapad on the hard surface. She washed her hands again before snapping on a pair of gloves, fingering for the ID band the boy would've received when he'd been brought through the hospital doors.

She narrowed her eyes at the surname: _Yazawa._ It rung a bell, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember where she'd seen or heard it before. _Oh well. It doesn't matter right now, anyways._

She pulled out a penlight, shining it into the boy's dull red eyes. "Hey, can you hear me?" she asked, keeping her voice low but firm.

A mute nod.

"I need you to tell me where it hurts." He pointed somewhere in the region of his abdomen, but unfortunately, that didn't say much for her. _Well, at least it's a start._ She lifted the top of the hospital gown, exposing the skin underneath the pale blue fabric, noting the uneven way his ribs rose and fell with every breath. Watching the movement carefully for a few more seconds, she moved her left hand to rest her fingers on the other side of his ribs.

"Does this hurt?" she asked. He shook his head, although she could see tears forming in his eyes. She moved her hand closer to where her right hand was positioned, feeling for anything out of place. So far, she felt nothing, but Maki noticed how the boy tensed the closer her hand got to the side she was standing on. When she reached his left ribs, his body torched with excruciating swiftness as he arched his back, causing his older sister to snap.

"You're hurting him!" she accused as she strode forward.

Maki batted her away before the other woman could touch her again. "No, I'm not, she growled, watching the boy's breathing as she rapidly counted his respiratory rate under her breath for the second time. Even compared to just a few minutes before, it was elevated and his work of breathing had increased; by now, she thought she knew what was wrong with him.

Ripping the curtains open, she hailed a nurse. "Who's on call for internal medicine tonight?"

The nurse consulted her datapad. "Takahiro," she replied after a few moments.

She nodded once. "Call him. Tell him to get down to Emerg. _Now._ "

She didn't wait for the nurse's nod of assertion before turning around again, her previous irritation with the black haired woman paling in comparison for her worry for the boy on the bed as she redirected her attention to him again. She could worry about frightened, and pissed off family members later. Digging through the supply cabinet at the back of the small treatment room, she found what she was looking for: an IV kit.

Something in her demeanor must've changed, because the other woman retreated to the previous corner she'd been occupying previously, plopping herself down on the small stool that wasn't technically meant for family members, but Maki let it go as she ripped open the kit. The hospital had an IV team that usually performed the procedure—or she usually called Minami Kotori—but who knew where they were tonight? It would be quicker for her to do it herself, as she assessed the pale skin on the boy's arm, picking a suitable spot after a few moments.

She breathed a small sigh of relief when her first attempt in the chosen vein was successful—inserting an IV was a skill that took years to master, and it was one most physicians left to the nurses, although Maki did not have the luxury of time to wait for one tonight. Thankfully, the specialist she'd called for pulled open the curtains seconds later. "You called, Dr. Nishikino?" the older man asked her, slight skepticism in his tone as he took in the sight of her, the boy, and the black-haired woman.

Maki did not particularly like Takahiro Hiroshi. He had worked for the university hospital since before the first Ceresis attacks, and had been a minor acquaintance of her father's. When she had graduated medical school, he had been one of the first people to voice his dissent over her new position, though he took care never to say it to her face. He wasn't the only one, however, and grudgingly, Maki had let it slide, knowing that nothing she could say would change his opinion of her until she proved it otherwise.

But for his sake more than her own tonight, she fervently hoped that he had the sense to put petty matters behind him.

She led him to where the boy was lying as he took a quick glance at the boy's vitals. "I think he's hemorrhaging internally," she said, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from the short woman behind her.

Takahiro paused for a brief moment or two, raking his eyes over the patient before scanning the boy's vitals once more. "I agree. We need to get him to the OR." There was no short derisiveness in his tone tonight as he pushed past her in a hurry, yelling for a nurse to accompany him.

Maki stood by as they pushed the boy, flanked by Takahiro and several nurses down the hallway, the short woman in tow, being led by another. There was nothing else she could do now, and for a moment, she was struck by how singular and helpless she was as she stood there in the now empty examination room.

 _Even if I_ am _a doctor, I can't do everything. I can't help everyone._

The she shook her head, dislodging several tangled curls of dark red hair. _But I sure as hell am going to try._

* * *

It was almost morning when, finally, the emergency department was nearly empty. Most of the patients had been sent home, or otherwise admitted, and Maki allowed herself her third cup of coffee in as many hours as she brushed past the nursing station on her way to see her last patient, an older woman with some minor burns on her arms.

Tiredness occasionally clutched at her eyelids, but the tingling buzz of caffeine still lingered in her veins as she made impersonal small talk with the woman, who was mostly concerned about how much reparation the district was going to pay her for her ruined apartment unit. It took a considerable amount of her self-control to keep her comments to herself as she cleaned the large blisters with saline solution before carefully dressing it, giving the woman explicit instructions on how to care for her dressings and then sent her off on her way to the pharmacy.

She pushed back her hair from her forehead as she went to dump the remains of her coffee into the sink at the back of the emergency department, almost running into Kotori, who had just shown up for her shift, on the way. "Maki-chan, are you okay?" The brunette's voice was full of gentle, characteristic concern as she took in her appearance.

She stifled a yawn. "Tired," she muttered in reply.

"Go home," Kotori told her, giving her a little push towards the large glass doors where morning summer sunshine was streaming through. "I'll tell Umi-chan to make you some food."

Maki felt a faint blush beginning to creep up the sides of her neck as a wave of embarrassment washed over her. Waving a short goodbye to Kotori over her shoulder, she stepped through the emergency department's doors, wincing at the already balmy temperature outside, even though it was barely 0700.

On her way back to her lab, she decided to take a short cut through the parking lot, not wanting to stay out in the early morning summer heat for any longer than necessary. Her thoughts diverged into her research as she walked, and Maki wondered if it was even worth going back to sleep at this point—her latest caffeine kick was still present under her skin and even if by some miracle she did manage to fall asleep in the heat, it would turn into a very sticky, very uncomfortable afternoon for her when she woke up.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't notice that she'd run into someone—or that someone had run into _her_ —until she found herself face to face with the short, black-haired woman from the previous night.

She was wearing sunglasses and a face mask over the lower half of her face now, hands laden with plastic bags as they stared at each other for a moment in the parking lot, before Maki made a motion to keep walking. She had just taken a step forward when the black-haired woman spoke.

"Hey. Thanks… for last night," she said in a low, sheepish mutter, almost too quietly for her to hear, though she could still detect a trace of the indignant tone that seemed to constantly be present in the woman's speech in her words. "The doc said you saved my brother's life. If you hadn't noticed when you did…" Her voice trailed off, as Maki felt embarrassment tighten the back of her throat for the second time in less than twenty minutes.

It took her a moment to place the boy's name— _Yazawa._ "I-It was nothing," she mumbled, hoping her embarrassment wasn't currently showing on her face. It was one thing between her friends or Kotori, for that matter, but a whole another one between strangers, patients, or other physicians.

"I mean it," the other woman insisted, in a louder voice. "You didn't have to pay any attention to me in the hallway."

Maki felt herself beginning to get flustered at the amount of backtracking the black-haired woman was doing, even though she was half a head shorter than her and far less intimidating height-wise. "I-It's not like I did it for you or anything! I was just doing my job!"

"Hmph! I take the time to thank you and I don't even get a 'you're welcome' in return. Remind me not to grace you with my generosity next time." With that, the other woman turned around and flounced off in the direction of the hospital entrance, leaving Maki standing there, flabbergasted.

A car honked at her from behind.

She resisted the dire temptation to curse out loud, a tiny voice in the back of her head reminding her how unprofessional that would look, especially since she was still dressed in her lab coat.

Striding quickly off the pavement and onto the pathway that led to her lab, Maki fumed silently at the events that had just transpired. _Next time. What the hell does she even mean, next time? What makes her think that makes her brother one of my patients? Even if he is, how many patients does she think I have?_ The short woman's abrasive personality was enough to rub _anyone_ the wrong way and Maki sincerely hoped that there would be no _next time_.

Her bad mood persisted until she entered the dim, shaded building where her underground laboratory was located. The lack of sunshine as she walked down the hallway only served to lift her mood by the tiniest margin as she typed in her password to her laboratory, raising a hand to flick on the lights out of habit before she realized they were already on.

Umi was standing at her coffee maker, and she raised a blue eyebrow as she stormed in; obviously, she'd noticed the scowl that Maki was sure was still plastered to her face. "Kotori told me you got called in overnight. Did you have a bad night?" her friend offered after several minutes of silence.

Maki strode over to her desk and pulled out her chair in an angry motion before sitting down in it with a _thump_. "A bad patient, more like," she muttered, trying to put the thoughts of the short, irritating woman to the back of her mind as she watched the coffee boil.

Both of them turned around in near unison when the door to the lab opened again, revealing a messy head of blonde hair as Eli let herself in. She looked surprised to see both of them there as she made her way down the short flight of steps, mumbling a greeting as she passed the table. She had her left hand deep in the pocket of the light jacket she was wearing, but from where she was sitting, Maki couldn't make out what was in it.

Maki exchanged a furtive glance with Umi. "What's up with _you_?" she finally asked, fatigue making her words slightly sharper than she intended them to be.

Eli looked up from underneath blonde bangs, as though the words had startled her, but she didn't retaliate like she normally would've, which concerned Maki more than the somnolent, impassive expression on her face. "Toujou… gave this to me yesterday," she finally answered, digging into her pocket and pulling out a single piece of paper. She held it out—Maki noticed the slight tremble in her slender fingers as she did so.

Umi took a few steps forward to take it from her, and Maki got up from her chair so she could look over her blue-haired friend's shoulder.

The edges of the photograph were already crinkled and worn, clearly having been thumbed many times over, and underneath the fingerprint marks that decorated its glossy surface, Maki could make out distinctive blonde hair with a very familiar hairpin. She looked up sharply the same moment Umi gasped.

"Is that her?" Maki demanded, her earlier frustration with Eli evaporating on the spot. The timer on the coffee maker went off behind them, but no one was paying attention to it anymore.

Eli bit her lip. "I… think so. But I can't be sure." Her fingers tightened into a fist as she continued. "Not until I see her in person."

"Is this where you were last night?" Umi asked quietly, still holding onto the photograph.

Eli nodded, taking a deep breath as she tucked stray strands of blonde hair behind her ears. "Toujou offered to take me to where her investigation team took this photo. But… we didn't see her." Her voice hardened a little out of frustration.

Maki narrowed her eyes at the word ' _we_ ', but repressed the urge to comment.

Umi took a few steps forward until she was close enough to put one hand on Eli's shoulder. "We'll go with you next time," she said. Maki gave her a single, brisk nod as Umi spoke the words.

Eli rested both her hands on the surface of the table. "Thank you," she murmured softly, remaining still for a few moments, before moving over to sit down in front of her personal computer, turning it on, breaking the unaddressed emotional tension in the room as she did so.

Umi turned back towards the coffee maker in the corner and she made her way over to it. "Do you want some?" she asked.

Maki accepted the cup and drank the hot liquid cautiously, watching Eli decline the offer out of the corner of her eye. The black, bitter mixture burnt her tongue and managed to chase away the sleepiness that was crowding at the edges of her consciousness again, but its temperature made her feel slightly queasy, especially given the warmth outside.

She stalked over to her fridge and grabbed a handful of ice from the freezer, dropping them into her mug.

Sipping on her new, improved drink, she turned around to find both Eli and Umi staring at her. "What the hell are you doing?" Eli asked her, eying the drink in her hand with disbelief. "That's not even coffee anymore."

Maki shrugged. "Shut up," she mumbled, sitting back down on her chair in front of her laptop. She cast a glance towards the incubators that lined the opposite wall. She had requested a new line of samples last week, but it would be awhile before the cells matured enough for her to continue her research.

She turned on the news idly as she continued to take small sips of her now chilled-coffee from her cup. The news reporter was recounting the events of the riot last night, and briefly, Maki wondered how Toujou intended to deal with the aftermath, especially given the fact that Eli had essentially just told her she hadn't been present in the district building when it had broken out.

The news reporter had just enlarged the recording from a security camera of the nearby shopping mall when cold fingers suddenly gripped her hand. "What?" she snapped, startled out of her musing.

"Rewind that a little," Eli told her, pointing a slender finger at the video feed. The blonde had rolled her chair over from her computer and had been watching the news with her.

Maki scowled, but did what she was told, rewinding the video back by thirty seconds. "What are you looking for?" she asked impatiently, completely bewildered as to what Eli was up to now.

"Just wait," Eli replied, her cerulean gaze now intently focused on the video clip. "Pause it here," she said a few moments later, and Maki smacked the spacebar on her laptop—perhaps a little too hard, because she heard a small sound of disapproval from Umi behind her.

"What are you looking at?" she repeated, before her gaze followed the tip of Eli's finger to a man in the crowd.

She heard Umi hoist herself off the gurney behind them.

He seemed to be arguing with a merc, but Maki knew that wasn't what had caught Eli's attention.

"Isn't that…" Umi's voice trailed off, but she didn't need to complete her sentence, because Maki thought she recognized the man in the image as well. As poor quality as the video image was, she was fairly sure she was looking at Tokyo District's leader of the movement to reject the New Edenra Policy, Samejima Sho, moments before a bullet pierced the side of his head, the act partially camouflaged by falling debris from a burning car behind them.


	9. Qualia

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** Qualia (クオリア) - UVERworld

(Side note: I was surprised to find that "qualia" is actually a word, but its meaning is actually super fitting for this chapter; I think I listened to this song about 50 times in the past two days, lol)

* * *

 _"I believed that we could understand each other._

 _Was that too naïve of me to assume so? Even in a Tokyo that has been torn apart completely twice in less than ten years, I truly believed that somehow, we could still understand each other._

 _But when I looked at the images of the aftermath of the riot that had occurred just outside the doors of Tokyo's district building itself, for the first time, I wondered if I was wrong. Had the years of discrimination already created distance that could never be bridged and a gap too far for us to reach out across? Was it already too late for us to even remember that once, we had been born into the same city and shared our mutual hopes to the same skies?" —Toujou Nozomi_

* * *

Eli stared at the frozen image on the computer screen in front of her, thoughts racing at a million miles per hour as the news stream continued to play, though she was barely paying attention to it anymore.

She heard a scuffle behind her as someone shifted their position. "Do you think someone killed him on purpose?" Umi's voice was quiet. "Or was this an accident?"

Maki snorted from her chair as she swivelled it around to face the blue-haired woman. "Are you kidding me?" she asked incredulously, before the tone in her voice intensified. "This was murder, and this is the result of someone's pathetic attempt to pass it off as an accidental death. In fact, I wouldn't put it past someone to stage this entire riot just so they could kill him." She arched an eyebrow in Eli's direction, obviously hoping for—or expecting—an agreement.

When she didn't immediately reply, Maki snorted again. "Eli, please don't tell me you're naïve enough to actually think this wasn't done on purpose. I thought you were the one who enlightened Umi that just because murder is illegal doesn't mean nobody does it?"

"That's not it," she replied slowly, biting her lip as she mulled over the limited facts they had at the moment. "I agree it was done on purpose. But… who actually gains an advantage from this?"

At that, Maki laughed, the sound derisive and sarcastic. "Are you serious? Who do you _think_ stands to gain from this?"

Some aspect of her confusion must've shown on her face, because the redhead actually got up from her chair, crossing her arms over her chest as she closed the small distance between where she was standing and where Eli was sitting. "Wouldn't it be convenient for Toujou to get him out of her way?"

Eli stared up at the expression in her friend's amethyst gaze before she looked down, catching Umi's eye as she did so.

 _Do I really think Toujou would've done it?_

Somehow, she didn't think so. If she had been asked that question before she'd met Tokyo's head of state in person, she would've agreed that the violet-haired woman might have ordered someone to do it, like all of Tokyo's businessmen and politicians before her. But if there was one thing that Eli could've taken away from her limited interactions with Toujou, it would've been the single line that she'd said to her in the car that had changed how she felt about the woman in question.

 _"Once upon a time, we were kin, staring up at the same sky we were born under."_

The memory of the way she'd spoken that one sentence reverberated in Eli's mind as she thought back to it; it had been spoken with such understanding that it had been in that moment that she knew Toujou also knew—and recognized— the enormity of the task in front of her if she wanted her policy to be accepted. It was impossible to care so much about its acceptance and yet throw those sentiments away carelessly moments later. Unless Toujou was a far better liar than she thought she was, Eli couldn't imagine that the district ruler would've resorted to violence mere hours after Tokyo's first major demonstration against it.

"No," she said, without looking up, slightly wary of what she might find in Maki's angry glare because of her disagreement. "I don't think she does."

"Why not?" The bitter scorn in her voice didn't escape her notice.

She replied "She's not that kind of person" at the same time that Umi said, "It makes no sense."

Maki glared at each of them in turn as Eli looked up to meet Umi's amber gaze. She didn't miss the way her redheaded friend narrowed her eyes at her before turning to Umi, her stance all but demanding an explanation.

Umi took a few steps forward until she was next to the table where Maki's laptop was set up, and she watched the news stream for a few moments before replying. "Think about it," Umi started in a low voice, as though they could be overheard in the underground laboratory even though there was no chance of it actually happening. " _If_ Toujou really wanted him dead, would she have made it so obvious? There are very few people who live in Tokyo that actually agree with her policy, because the thought of the _possibility_ of a second Bloody Valentine is enough to make them protest against it. Not to mention that his death is only going to incense his followers, which would in turn increase the amount of dissent against her policy. She may be a politician, but I think she knows better than to assassinate someone like that publicly."

Silence greeted the end of Umi's words as Eli took the opportunity to rewind the news stream again. There was something she wanted to double check, and wryly, she noted that Maki hadn't bothered to address her statement, which suited her just fine, because she didn't feel like explaining her feelings right now—and especially not to a Maki who'd obviously had a bad night and was currently running on the last legs of a bad temper and an unhealthy dose of caffeine.

She rolled her chair back to her own personal computer, opening several files that she'd accumulated over the years. One of them was a three-dimensional map of downtown Tokyo. Eli had forgotten when and where she'd actually gotten the files for the map, but she was glad that she'd had the foresight to save it, because it had come in handy more than once.

She enlarged the area where the riot had taken place the previous night, highlighting the street where Samejima had been shot. Glancing back at the fuzzy image on Maki's laptop for reference, she marked the rough spot where the man had been standing before he'd been shot, turning the map around several times in comparison to make sure she had gotten the right spot. Flicking another gaze at the paused image of the protestor just seconds before he'd gotten shot, she tried to determine by eye the angle in which the bullet had come in from, looking back at the laptop a few times to ensure that her work was accurate.

When everything was laid out in a 3D form, she narrowed her eyes.

There was really only one building in the area where the bullet could've come from—it stood just about a kilometer away from the street where the rioters had been gathered, where it towered over the lower, residential apartments that lined the previous streets. It was the only building in the area that was high enough and had the correct line of sight for someone to line up a shot from.

From her previous research, Eli already knew that Samejima Sho had been at the forefront of the protests against Toujou's New Edenra Policy ever since she had proposed it a few months ago. Some digging had revealed that Samejima had worked in finance before Bloody Valentine, in which his wife had become an Edenra victim. He had promptly sold all his assets after February 2026, and had started an electoral platform in one of Tokyo's remaining wards, although his campaign had never been anything more than moderately successful until recently.

Eli had no doubt that the man had enemies, but she was also sure that they wouldn't be significant enough to warrant a very public, very obvious murder that would almost certainly be broadcast on news stations across the remnants of Japan; he was just another piece in a very large puzzle that had no intention of revealing itself anytime soon.

Cracking her knuckles, she decided to investigate the building that she thought the shot had been fired from.

"Are you sure it's that building?" Umi's voice came from directly behind her, and Eli almost started—she had been so absorbed in what she was doing that she hadn't realized that Umi and Maki had stopped their discussion; instead, both of them had been intently watching what she was doing over her shoulder for the last few minutes.

She contemplated Umi's question for a minute. "I think so. Nothing else in the area makes sense, especially when you consider how fast the bullet was travelling when it hit him."

Eli half-turned to see Umi purse her lips slightly at the suggestion. "To be honest," her blue-haired friend began, "it would be almost impossible to hit someone from that distance with a sniper bullet."

She was silent as she considered Umi's input. "Because of the distance, or because they wouldn't have a weapon powerful enough?" she finally asked.

Umi thought about the question for a brief heartbeat before answering. "Both, really. I mean, I suppose it would be possible for someone to own a sniper rifle or a machine gun that could make that shot, but it's mainly the distance. If you were on top of that building just to make that _one_ shot count, you would have to be either ridiculously lucky, or…" Umi trailed off.

"Or what?" Impatience dogged the edges of Maki's tone.

"Or you had equipment set up on the rooftop to begin with," she said slowly.

Eli glanced up for a second at her blue-haired friend from underneath her messy blonde bangs. "Time to find out."

Loading up Tokyo City's database, she had the building's address within seconds. _If you're going to kill someone on the roof of a building, you either have access to it—which means connections—or you work there._ The first few floors were purely commercial: an assortment of coffee shops, small businesses, and a tourism agency. The fifth to twenty-seventh were offices, but none of their names stood out to her as she looked through the list of corporations. _I would've recognized them if they had enough funds to sponsor something like this._

She paused when the last corporation's name popped up on her screen. The company owned the entirety of the twenty-eighth floor to the fortieth, and she leaned slightly closer to her computer screen to read the text that highlighted the company's name. _Edo Manufacturing._ The name struck her as slightly odd—usually, manufacturing companies didn't have their headquarters in downtown Tokyo because it was more convenient to situate them close to the factories that had sprung up near Tokyo Bay.

Edo Manufacturing was registered to a man named Edo Kouji, and Eli narrowed her eyes at the name. He had come across her desk more than once, as a standard profile picture of the man in question loaded on her screen. He was middle-aged, dressed in a business suit with long shoulder length silver hair tied behind him in a ponytail. She knew from past experience that he'd purchased the downtown corporate office within the last five years, a none-too-small feat for a company that had only sprung into success in the immediate aftermath of the first Ceresis attacks.

The fortieth floor in the building was also the only floor with direct access to the roof.

"Think he sponsored it?" Eli turned her chair around to see Maki twirling a lock of dark red hair in a finger as she looked at the photo of Edo Kouji.

"It doesn't have to be him," Umi interjected. "He could have been paid to turn a blind eye, or it could even be someone who works in that office. The point is, we don't know and we won't know unless we have more information." She turned, grabbing her bow and arrows off a hook in the wall. "I'm going to go talk to Rin."

The silhouette of the bounty hunter disappeared around the corner of the doorframe as she left, leaving Eli alone with Maki.

There was silence for a few minutes, until the redheaded surgeon broke it.

"I thought I told you to watch yourself out there," Maki growled at her, completely changing the topic now that Umi was out of the room.

Eli couldn't tell if her irritation was at least partially fueled by sleep deprivation or not, but regardless, if she was honest with herself, she had at least somewhat expected this particular conversation to happen the moment Maki had an opportunity to do so without Umi holding her back.

"I am," she replied, careful to keep her voice measured and calm.

"The hell you are!" her friend snapped back. "You used to question everything everyone did, wondering if you could trust anyone beyond the two of us. Then you go and meet Toujou in person, and it's like she turned you inside out. What happened to the cynical Eli I know and trust? Do I even know you anymore?"

Even though she had also barely slept the previous night, Eli stood up, clenching both her hands into fists at the accusation. She was a few centimetres taller than Maki, a fact that served her well at the moment. "I haven't changed," she countered, careful to keep her temper under control, because part of her knew and understood why Maki was lashing out. "You're right. In the grand scheme of things, I _don't_ know Toujou well at all. But I've spent enough time around her to see that she's not like the rest of the politicians that piss me off so much, unless you're trying to say that I'm idiotic enough not to know when I'm being lied to."

Maki backed off a tiny bit before her shoulders rose, sharpening. "I'm saying that she's trying to get you, I don't know, on her _side_ or something." She took a step closer to her until they were practically face to face, though to Eli, all it did was emphasize the height difference between them. "Damn it, Eli, I really thought you knew better than this!"

Eli tried to reign in her growing exasperation, knowing that if she started yelling too, all they would do was bash heads. Part of her wanted to, but the more reasonable half of her brain told her not to; if she did, the only thing that would end up happening would be the insecurities and her own doubts and fears tumbling out in a manner that she was wholly unprepared for at the moment.

She let out a long breath. "I get it," she said through a throat tighter than her clenched fists. "I know why you're concerned. But I thought you said you trusted me; because if you do, then you know I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize everything we've spent the last eight years building."

Maki finally deflated in front of her, her shoulders dropping a little as she took a step back. "Fine," the redhead finally acquiesced after several long minutes, her voice wavering just a little as she went on. "You're right. We… have to trust each other."

Eli allowed herself a small smile as the redhead snatched her mug off her table and proceeded to chug the rest of the drink in one swift motion, as though the cup in question was the source of all her frustration and she wanted nothing more than to be rid of it.

Climbing the small flight of stairs to let herself out of the laboratory after she'd turned off her computer, she looked back to see that Maki had retreated to the back of the laboratory, peering into her incubators with the empty coffee mug still in her hand. "You should really go get some sleep," she quipped as she made to open the door.

Maki shot her a look over the line of metal apparatuses. "Shut up."

* * *

Umi poked her head through the burlap flap entrance of Rin's shop, a heavy bounty bag hanging off her left shoulder. It had taken her longer than expected to travel to the city's outskirts in the heavy summer heat, but she was thankful of the quiet it provided the woods just beyond the fence. Most of the city's bounty hunters and private military corporations preferred to hunt at night during the summer, a prospect that suited her current agenda well, because Umi did not think her frayed nerves could handle someone like Satou Fubuki at the moment.

"Afternoon, Umi-chan!" Rin, however, was as bright and exuberant as ever as Umi let herself into the shade of the small shop, narrowly avoiding stepping on a cat as she made her way to the counter. She dropped her bounty bag on top of the glass surface, and Rin grinned at her with a very Cheshire-cat like smile as she opened the bag to peer inside.

"This is great, Umi-chan," she said as she pulled the bag closed and swept it off her counter surface. "I've got the arrows you wanted last time, too. Give me a sec to go get them…" She hopped off her stool and disappeared into the back of her shop.

Reappearing a few minutes later, Umi noticed that Rin was carrying more than just a sheath of arrows in her hands as she sat down on her stool again, shooing away a calico cat from off the countertop. The orange-haired young woman passed the sheath of arrows over to her first before shifting her sitting position slightly.

"Hey, Umi-chan… remember how nya owe me a favour?"

Umi half-smiled, half-frowned as she set the heavy bag on the ground. "Go on."

The smaller woman squared her shoulders. "You know how Samejima Sho was killed last night?" When Umi nodded, Rin took a breath before continuing. "He was a friend of my dad's. Kayo-chin told me that Toujou-sama wasn't even in the district building when he died. So… do you think Eli-chan can find out how he died for me?"

Umi bit her lip, not wanting to reveal anything that had been discussed in Maki's laboratory that morning just yet. "Who's… 'Kayo-chin'?" she asked, stalling for time.

"Oh." Rin dropped the volume of her voice. "My friend. She's Toujou-sama's secretary."

Surprised, Umi arched an eyebrow in Rin's direction. "Really?"

Rin nodded seriously. "Only, don't tell anyone I told nya that—she doesn't really want anyone else to know."

Umi's sense of caution warred with her sense of loyalty towards Rin. On one hand, she couldn't deny that Rin had been a good friend to her over the years, who also happened to be her source of income, but on the other, she knew that what the three of them had discussed that morning wasn't exactly the epitome of a conversation she could just repeat in public. The value of information—if information was something tangible—was almost worth its weight in gold, and based on Eli's previous dealings with various weapons dealers and business corporations alike, she knew that it was a matter not to be taken lightly at all.

She wasn't sure if she could give Rin a concrete answer just yet. "I'll see what I can do," Umi finally offered, hoping it would be enough at the moment until she had time to think things over and discuss the matter at hand with Eli.

Rin nodded seriously before a small grin quirked at the corner of her lips again. "Then we'd be even."

Umi allowed herself a soft, amused snort as she saw herself out, remembering to collect her new sheath of arrows from where she'd left them on the floor as Rin waved over a cat clamouring for her attention now that Umi had vacated the spot her cats usually occupied.

She winced at the temperature outside; heat shimmered off the dust gathered on the dirt roads of the outer districts and the sky above was blue and cloudless, with no breeze to speak of.

It was going to be a very sticky, very uncomfortable walk back into Tokyo.

* * *

Eli held her phone in one hand as she walked along the waterfront, stalling for time until her appointment with Toujou. Koizumi had called her sometime that afternoon after she'd woken up from her nap—although the demure young woman hadn't given her a reason for the meeting this time yet again, she presumed it was because Toujou wanted to discuss their trip to the Tokyo's outer district the previous night.

The stretch of walkway alongside Tokyo Bay was her preferred place to allow herself some breathing room before she had to be back in a building that would inevitably be stuffed full of restless, edgy politicians, especially given the events of the previous night.

The sun had almost completely set, lending milky pink fingers across the mauve gradient of the summer evening sky; the relative silence by the water, its dark currents churning despite the absence of a breeze gave her a few moments to gather and organize her thoughts.

She was staring out across the inky waves, playing idly with a loose strand of blonde hair before a new sound caught her attention.

Turning her head in its direction, she spotted a lone young girl standing by the steep drop-off of rocks that led down to the waterfront. _She's… singing?_

Curiosity got the better of her as she drew closer to the girl, who couldn't have been more than ten or eleven. Her long, platinum hair was unkempt and messy, and she was wearing a dirtied blue dress that had clearly seen better days. She was standing next to a small, empty bowl and there was a grey bandana over her eyes; it took some effort for Eli to read the characters written on the sign she had hanging around her neck: _I am an orphan from the outer districts._

The girl paused in her song as she heard her footsteps of approach, before offering her a small, wan smile.

Eli stopped a few feet away from the girl. The question fell from her lips before she could stop them. "What… happened to your eyes?"

The girl looked up slightly—if she could see her, she would have been looking directly at her. "I lost my sight four years ago during Bloody Valentine," she said, but Eli could detect no hint of bitterness, grief, or even anger in the girl's voice as she spoke, as though it was a simple fact that she had come to accept. They might've been talking about the weather.

The girl took a few small steps towards her, and reached out a thin, calloused hand. The rough fingertips came into contact with Eli's cheek, and she had to force herself not to flinch at the unexpected touch—an ingrained reaction that her body had been trained to do ever since her disastrous last visit into Tokyo's outer districts.

But there was no malice in the young girl's gesture, and she lowered her hand a few moments later. "You're very pretty," she observed in a soft voice. She opened her mouth again as if to say more, before a babble of drunken laughter interrupted them.

Eli turned her head to see a group of bounty hunters who had obviously been drinking at a bar before they headed out beyond the fence that evening. One of them was holding a drink in his hand, and he sniggered as he passed them, flicking the aluminum tab of the can into the girl's bowl as he did so. "Take that and get out of here. You Edenra victims don't belong on Tokyo," he snarled.

The girl seemed unfazed by the scornful anger in the man's voice. "Thank you so much!" she called after him.

Eli struggled to contain her feelings as she watched the exchange. A tumour of fury and sorrow spawned at the back of her throat and remained there stubbornly as the group of men walked away.

She bent down until she was at the girl's eye level. "Listen, you shouldn't come back here for awhile," she told her, trying to control the tremor that she was sure her throat would insert into her words.

The girl shook her head. "But… I have a little sister…"

It was like someone had actually hit her in the chest, as Eli bit down on her lip to stop herself from crying out loud. She closed her eyes for a long moment, willing the storm of emotions in her chest to settle themselves. When they didn't, she reached into her pocket, finding the change she'd stowed there a few days ago before shoving into the girl's hand.

The small fingers rubbed across the surface of the money for a few heartbeats before she jerked her head up in surprise. "All of this? But why?"

Eli straightened, looking out across the water of Tokyo Bay, but seeing none of it. "Don't worry about it," she insisted. "Just promise me."

There was a moment of pause as a chilly evening breeze blew across the waterside, disturbing a flock of seagulls that had been nesting on a nearby rock, before the girl nodded hesitantly. "O-Okay."

Eli turned away, setting her sights on the district building in the distance. She was tempted to look back once or twice, just to see if the girl had really done what she had told her to do, but she forced herself not to—instead putting her efforts into shoving her emotions in a locked box and throwing away the key before she had to meet Toujou face to face again.

* * *

There were more security guards than Eli remembered there ever being in the lobby of the district building as Koizumi led her past anxious knots of politicians; all of them, as far as she could tell, were busy discussing the events of last night's riot, and she heard Toujou's whispered name more than once as she walked by.

The darkened hallways felt stuffy as she walked down the familiar landing that led towards Toujou's office. Halfway up the last flight of stairs, a buzzing interrupted their otherwise silent walk. Koizumi instantly blushed—visible even in the dim lighting—and she paused, fumbled slightly as she withdrew her phone from her pocket. "H-Hello?"

Eli stopped too, waiting as Koizumi listened intently to the person on the other end of the line. "Y-Yes! I'll be there!" She hung up and gave her an apologetic glance.

"I-I'm sorry, Ayase-san, but an important business owner is here to schedule a meeting with Toujou-sama for the next few days. Do you mind going up by yourself? S-She's with Fujiwara-san at the moment, but she'll see you afterward."

Eli shook her head, the nervousness of Toujou's secretary amusing her slightly as it always had. "I don't mind."

Koizumi bowed a little to her. "T-Thank you!" she stammered before dashing off, disappearing once she'd reached the bottom of the stairs.

Eli made the rest of the short way to Toujou's office alone. The upper hallways were deserted, minus the occasional security guard doing rounds, bright flashlights in hand, and its stillness was a welcome reprieve from the distressed, suspicious atmosphere in the foyer filled with uptight politicians.

She heard voices as she neared Toujou's door; stopping just outside, she realized that it had been left ajar, allowing a thin beam of moonlight to poke through the crack. Eli almost raised her hand to knock on the wood before an angry voice knifed through the silence like a blade.

"Are you _sure_ you didn't order someone to kill him?"

She recognized Fujiwara's irate voice in a heartbeat as Eli paused outside the door, her pulse suddenly racing as she realized that this was not a conversation for her ears. The respectful thing to do would've been to back away, but she knew herself well enough that she knew she wouldn't be able to do so.

"And if I did?" Toujou's voice was as delicate as ever, as though she was discussing something trivial and mundane.

"How could you be so _stupid_?" came the angry splutter from the advisor. "Are you _trying_ to commit political suicide?"

"No," Toujou replied, the sudden coldness in her voice as inexorable as an avalanche. "For the record, however… I did not."

There was silence for several long heartbeats.

"I see you haven't completely forgotten what your father taught you then," Fujiwara muttered at last. "Nonetheless, this is going to be a problem."

"I am aware," Toujou interrupted him midsentence.

Fujiwara ploughed on, undeterred. "Even if you didn't order him killed, you realize what the public will _think_ , right? Toujou-sama, I urge you—drop your New Edenra Policy before it's too late. It's already unpopular enough as it is, and the fact that the leader of its opposition was killed during his own demonstration will just serve to diminish its reputation further."

There was the scuffle of cloth against cloth—Eli imagined Toujou getting up from her chair to look out her window as she so often did.

"Be as that may, I intend to continue." She heard the same quiet determination in Toujou's voice that had been present last night in the car, when the violet-haired young woman had spoken about her aspirations for the district that she had inherited.

"Don't you understand?" Fujiwara asked her, incredulous contempt dripping from his words. "There is _no chance_ you'll be able pass it now _._ "

Silence again.

"That remains to be seen, Advisor," Toujou remarked serenely, though Eli could tell from her tone that she was far from amused. "That will be all."

There was no sound of the man making a motion to leave, though, as long minutes ticked by. "One day," the man finally said, "you'll realize how incredibly naïve you're being, Toujou-sama. There's no way you can appease everyone in this district. It's better that you stop now before you get yourself killed trying to."

There was the sound of footsteps on carpet, and Eli realized too late that she was too close to the heavy oak doors for it to look like she hadn't been eavesdropping, as Fujiwara Hayato wrenched the door open.

They stared at each other for several moments. She could see the anger that was still etched on his face as his disgusted gaze bored into her, obviously as unhappy with her presence as she was with his. He looked as if he was ready to spit in her face, before he restrained himself with a visible, massive effort, and stalked away down the hallway, disappearing around a corner.

Eli stood by the doorway, suddenly unsure if she wanted to insert herself into the situation at all. She almost jumped when Toujou's voice broke the silence from where she was standing by the window. "Come in."

She took a tentative step forward, crossing the threshold into Toujou's office, moving forward past the single security guard standing by the door tonight.

"I… You heard all that?"

Eli looked down at her boots against the red plush of the carpet, wondering whether it was worth it to admit it or not. "Yes," she confessed finally, her conscience winning her over in the end.

"I trust that you will not repeat this conversation to anybody?" Toujou asked her after a few moments.

"No… of course not," she murmured.

Toujou still had her back to her; the moonlight coming in from the window made it hard for Eli to make out her features even as she half-turned. But as little as Eli realized she knew the woman in front of her, she knew enough to know that the expression in the district ruler's verdant eyes was sorrow. "Eli-san. Do you think I'm being naïve?"

The question was quiet, but the vulnerable emotion in it seemed almost disparate, as though Toujou wasn't really sure if she wanted to hear the answer from her or not. Eli tried to think about the broken body of the murdered man that had been frozen on her computer screen that morning, surrounded by blood and tainted by ash, but she found that all she could think of was the gentle, searching way the girl from the outer district had touched her face, and the quiet hopelessness in her voice when she'd spoken about the sister she still needed to care for.

"No," she said, her voice a little stronger than she would've thought it would be as the words made it past her throat. "I don't think so."


	10. Fugue

**Notes:** Oh man, this chapter. I thoroughly enjoyed writing its first half due to the nature of that interaction, but I had a really hard time writing the second. If I'm completely honest, some tears were shed during the creation of this chapter.

* * *

 _"Every year, during Obon, the three of us make the trip down to the Sumida River together, where we join the millions of other inhabitants of Tokyo at the river's mouth to set lanterns afloat in the dark currents of the river and watch as they are washed out into Tokyo Bay, before they disappear over the horizon._

 _For all the darkness that this city holds—its greed, its violence, and its impossible strive for the things it can never get back, the festival is the one day in every year where I believe we see nothing but the light. Each of the lanterns we place in the river holds the prayers, the memories, but most importantly, the will to live, even after all the tragedy this city has seen._

 _It is only on this day that I feel like a future built solely upon the foundation of the hopes that we released into the water… is not impossible." —Sonoda Umi_

* * *

Maki yawned as she walked through the sliding glass door of Emergency with Umi and Kotori. It was barely 0700, but the temperature outside was already rising to indecent levels.

"I'll see you guys later." Umi gave them both a small wave as she turned, her bow and arrows strapped to her back. The bounty hunter had tagged along to see Kotori off, and Maki hid a snigger behind a hand as Kotori clung to Umi's arm for a few more seconds, eventually giving the blue-haired woman a quick peck on the cheek, causing Umi to turn a bright red.

A few moments later, Kotori caught up with her as they walked down the linoleum hallway of the hospital. "I have your rounds list, by the way, Maki-chan," the brunette told her. "Let me go get it from the nursing station."

While Maki busied herself with a cup of coffee from the small stand on the way to Emergency, Kotori returned with her datapad. She ripped open a small packet of artificial sweetener, not in the mood for straight black coffee that morning, and cursed under her breath when her hand missed the rim of the cup, scattering small grains of sugar everywhere.

Stirring her drink with a stir stick, she browsed the names on the datapad as Kotori hurried away to start her shift in Emergency. She had taken all but one sip from her coffee when a name jumped out at her from the datapad's screen: _Yazawa._ She nearly spat out her mouthful of coffee before she remembered that she wasn't in her laboratory anymore. The image of the abrasive, black-haired woman stood out in her mind's eye as she continued down the hallway.

She had half a mind to go talk to the director and get her rounds list changed, before Maki thought better of it. She gritted her teeth at the thought of even _meeting_ the short woman, especially after their disastrous run-in in the parking lot. _I'll just have to suck it up,_ she told herself angrily.

Stopping by her tiny, cubby-sized office on the third floor to grab her lab coat, she consulted her datapad again. Her first patient was in a ward on the second floor; while it was tempting to wait for the elevator, she decided to walk down the stairs instead despite how unseasonably balmy it was already—it would give her a minute or two more to finish her morning caffeine intake and Maki did _not_ intend to see _anyone_ before she was feeling sufficiently awake.

* * *

It was 1030 by the time she allowed herself a small break. She had seen almost a dozen patients already and Maki decided now was an appropriate time for her third coffee before she saw the next name on her list: _Yazawa. Hell knows I'll need it if his sister's there._ The summer heat generally made her temper shorter than it usually was, but she couldn't place why exactly the black haired woman pissed her off so much; she'd had her fair share of countless difficult patients in the past, but it was like the woman in question knew _exactly_ how to rub her the wrong way.

Her feet dragged as she made her way down to the university hospital's tiny pediatric ward, throwing back the remaining dregs of her coffee before washing her hands with the alcohol rub beside the doors. She tapped her ID card on the electronic lock outside and waited for the doors to unlock before pushing them open. Pulling out her datapad again, out of comfort more than necessity, she navigated her way around several crash carts, a scale, and a broken IV pole until she found the right room.

She paused outside, irritation already itching underneath her skin, before she strode into the room, locating the right bed almost immediately—it was the only one swamped in way too many personal items. Far more than hospital policy allowed, actually, but there was no doubt in Maki's mind that the nurses had absolutely no desire to argue with the caustic older sibling of her patient.

She poked her head around the curtain. Thankfully, the two young teenage girls that had been present last time were nowhere to be seen, though she was met with the irksome crimson gaze of the short, twin-tailed woman almost immediately.

"What do _you_ want?"

The single line was enough to abolish any intention she might've had of being polite.

Maki's fingers twitched, before she remembered she was still holding her datapad in her hand. "I'm a doctor, remember? I'm here to see my patient."

The other woman chuffed, leaning back on her chair. "So get on with it then, _Doctor_ Nishikino," she retaliated, reading the name tag off the left side of her lab coat. She followed Maki's every motion with a sharp scarlet gaze, though by a passing glance, Maki noticed the dark circles underneath her eyelids.

She fingered for the boy's identification band looped around his wrist: _Yazawa Cotarou_. He was currently asleep, which suited her just fine as she double-checked the incision on his abdomen before moving on to make sure that there wasn't any swelling in his legs. "He's been up and walking?" she asked, making a very genuine attempt to keep her tone neutral.

The short woman crossed her arms. "Of course he has. What, did you think I wasn't gonna listen to the docs on purpose?"

Maki took a very long, deep breath in as she repressed her rising temper. She chose not to comment as she continued to read the notes entered by the boy's surgeon and nurses.

"Hey."

She glanced up sharply at the word, raising an eyebrow, biting down on her tongue before the word _'what'_ could slip out.

"So when's he gonna get to go home? I mean, I don't see you guys doing much around here that _I_ see he needs to stick around for."

She pretended to consult her notes again out of spite, re-reading the surgeon's post-op report that the boy's kidneys had been severely damaged due to the internal hemorrhage and that he thought the best option was to search for a kidney donor—or two—and progress with dialysis for the time being. She scowled a little as she read the nurses' notes after, because it was evident that nobody had actually bothered to discuss that with the woman in front of her.

"Look," Maki snapped. "He can't go home until we're a hundred percent sure there are no signs of infection. Has anyone discussed what your brother's future treatment plan looks like with you?" She knew what the answer was, but it would look bad on her part if she acted like someone had already held that discussion.

The black haired woman narrowed her eyes. "That's what they said you were here for this morning."

Maki resisted the dire temptation to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Alright," she finally sighed. "Well—"

"Hey, can we not do this here?" The other woman cut her off.

She stared back at her. "What?"

The short woman stood up, not that it made much of a difference in her overall height. "There are other patients here. I don't wanna have this discussion where everyone else can hear us. Don't you have a fancy office where we can talk or something?"

The aggravation that had been slowly building since minute one threatened to snap, before Maki reigned it in. She was on the verge of telling her no, but her strict adherence to hospital policy wouldn't let her—technically, the twin-tailed woman was right, as patient confidentiality was a right all patients and family members had, no matter how bothersome they were.

Briefly, she considered how long a trip to her office would cost her in terms of actually being on time to see all her patients today, but then she weighed it against the possible complaint the woman in front of her could file against her and the hospital; while her record was pristine, she had every intention to keep it that way.

"Fine," she growled at last. "Follow me."

She stalked out of the room, not bothering to look behind her to see if the black haired woman was keeping up, and she took the stairs out of spite. Swiping her ID card at her office door, she half-turned to see that the other woman was right behind her, glaring at her under uneven bangs that clearly hadn't been combed in some time.

Maki pulled out a chair on her way to her desk, rolling it a few feet so that it was positioned in front of her desk before she sat down behind it. Putting her datapad on the table surface, she beckoned once. "Have a seat." She was about to call the woman Yazawa-san, but she pressed her lips together at the last moment, not wanting to make any assumptions in case it was a sensitive topic for the woman in front of her.

"That's Yazawa Nico to you," the other woman snapped as she sat down in the rolling chair, crossing both her arms and legs as she did so. "So what's my brother's treatment plan?"

Maki took a deep breath, taking care not to sigh again before she answered the question in case that was enough to set the woman off. "Your brother's kidneys, quite frankly, are barely functioning due to trauma. The best option right now for him is to find a kidney donor—perhaps two, if we're able. Until then, he'll have to come in a few times each week for dialysis." She tried to keep her tone professional, but the constantly twitching eyelid from the other woman as she spoke made it more difficult than she would've liked.

"What do you mean, if you're able? How come no one's discussed this with me before?"

Maki didn't bother addressing the second question. "Kidney donors aren't easy to come across," she tried to explain. "But he's already on the hospital's donor list—"

"Yeah? Well I don't trust you guys. Who knows if you're even caring for him properly?" Yazawa stood, pointing a finger at her accusingly. " _I'll_ find a donor for him." As if to prove her point, she whipped out a cellphone adorned with altogether too many trinkets from her jacket pocket—the mere sight of it was enough to trigger Maki's gag reflex. _Why not buy yourself a jewelry case instead of a phone at that point?_

A business card fluttered to the floor, dislodged by the sudden motion, and she caught sight of an audition agency printed in small, neat lettering before it was swept up off the floor swiftly and stuffed out of sight. Suddenly, she remembered where she'd heard the name _Yazawa_ before.

"Wait," she said. "You said your name was Yazawa Nico?"

The twin-tailed woman gave her a dirty look in the middle of dialing a number on her overly-decorated phone. "That's what I said, isn't it?"

Maki swallowed the knot of anger at the back of her throat at her flippant attitude. "Aren't you that idol who recently got signed after years of singing underground?" She had meant the words as an insult, but judging from the way Yazawa's expression had frozen, it was clear that she hadn't taken it that way.

It went against the grain for her to watch news related to any form of entertainment, but political news were scarce after 2400, a time where it wasn't uncommon for her to still be holed up in her laboratory, working on her research. While she liked to work in silence, she had made it a habit of hers to turn on a news stream while taking one of her infrequent breaks. She mostly tuned the voices out during, but occasionally a name here or there would adhere itself to the back of her mind.

Slowly, Yazawa lowered her phone as she turned to continue to stare at her. "You know who I am?"

Maki felt a blush instantly creep up her cheeks. "N-No! I mean," she mumbled when Yazawa gave her a strange look. "I've heard your name on the news before. That's all."

The black haired woman replaced her phone in her jacket pocket as she sat down again after a pause. "Well, at least you're honest," she muttered darkly; Maki wasn't sure if she was meant for her to hear those words or not.

Their eyes met awkwardly for a single heartbeat—amethyst and crimson before Yazawa looked away angrily again. "Fine. We'll do things your way, for now. But if _anything_ goes wrong, you'll be hearing from my agency!" she threatened.

With that, she snatched her purse off the floor of the office and swept out of the room, leaving Maki to stare after her, completely bewildered as to what had triggered the short woman's change of heart so suddenly. _W-Was it something I said?_

* * *

Umi leaned against the now-cool surface of the brick wall that lined the university campus. Though it was past 2200, the heat was stifling as she stood still, sheath of arrows and her bow on her back. Beside her, Eli was playing idly with the earring that dangled off her right ear as she glanced repeatedly at her watch.

Restlessness scratched at her nerves; the driver of the expensive district car tapping his foot against the pavement looked as impatient as she felt. Umi reminded herself to never trust Maki's sense of time again— _'five more minutes'_ had turned into nearly twenty, and she was half-convinced that if the redhead didn't show up soon, the man would drive off without them.

As they had both promised Eli, the two of them would be going with her to Tokyo's outer district, and tonight was the third night in a row that they would be going. Umi had been fervently glad to hear from Eli that Toujou would be simply sending her investigation team to pick them up; not only would it would be a _very_ awkward car ride if Toujou were to accompany them, she also had serious doubts about Maki's ability to control her temper around the district ruler.

The sound of high heels against pavement snapped her out of her thoughts as Maki finally let herself out of the pedestrian gate. She had taken off her lab coat, though she hadn't bothered fixing her usual head of lab-hair.

"Ready to go?" the man asked them robotically as she approached them, though privately, Umi thought the man sounded exasperated and exhausted more than anything.

He held the back door of the car open for them as Umi climbed in after Eli, uncomfortably sandwiched between her two friends as the man closed the door after Maki. The car was air conditioned, but the back seat of the narrow limousine had not been built for three people. What no one wanted to do, however, was sit in the front. Anyone associated with the government was enough to make Umi twitch, and she was fairly sure she was not the only person currently sitting in the car that felt that way.

The twenty minute ride to the outer district was mostly silent; Eli was staring out the window with one hand resting on her cheek, and in the darkness, Umi couldn't read her expression nor decipher what she might have been thinking. Maki was fiddling with the hem of her loose shirt, trying to look anywhere _except_ out the window. Umi resisted the temptation to fidget. Her own sheath of arrows was pressed awkwardly against her back because her bow was already uncomfortably balanced on her knees. However, considering where they were going, there was no way she wasn't planning on keeping her weapon at her side at all times.

When the car finally stopped, Umi winced slightly at the sensation of the dust particles that smacked her in the face the moment Maki opened the door—she had forgotten how windy nights could get in the outer districts without the bulk of skyscrapers to hide them from the elements. She turned to watch Eli speak to the man for a few moments before joining them. "We've got an hour or two," she informed her as the two of them watched Maki swat furiously at the hem of her pants, trying to get the dust off of the black material.

Umi checked the tension on her bow as the three of them left the car behind. The climb up the now-familiar incline was interrupted only by the sound of their shoes crunching against loose rock. Vaguely, she remembered coming to this part of Tokyo a few times before the first Ceresis attacks, but for the life of her, Umi could not associate the desolate wasteland that was just on the inner boundary of the fence with the metropolis it has once been.

Once at the top of the small hillside that overlooked the intersection below, Maki picked herself a large piece of rubble to perch on, delicately sitting down on its worn surface as though that would prevent her from getting her shirt dirty.

Umi held her bow in one hand, arrow already loaded in place, though she didn't really expect anyone to actually come near the three of them.

For almost forty-five minutes, there was silence between them. She kept a wary glance over their surroundings, though she would have picked up the sound of footsteps against rough gravel long before anyone approaching became a legitimate threat. Umi felt a slow trickle of frustration build in the region of her stomach. _Are Toujou's people sure they saw her here more than once? What if—_

Suddenly, fingernails dug into her arm. "Umi." Eli's voice was a hiss. "Is that…"

She looked in the direction that Eli was pointing in. Down below, she could make out the silhouettes of two shadowy figures speaking in a small huddle, but she couldn't see what had made Eli grab her arm until one of them turned slightly, a lock of blonde hair caught in the stiff breeze suddenly illuminated by bright moonlight. Umi could not suppress the gasp that escaped her lips.

There was the crunch of rapid footsteps on gravel and Maki's voice came from just behind them. "Should we just go up to her now?"

Umi pressed her lips into a thin line before she realized that both Eli and Maki were looking at her, expecting a response. _R-Right. I suppose I do know the outskirts the best…_ "No," she decided. "We don't know who she's talking to, or even if that _is_ her. We should at least wait until she's done speaking with whoever that is."

Minutes seemed to tick by in slow-motion as the three of them watched the exchange below. It seemed to take forever for the girl to finish speaking with her companion, but finally, she extended a hand to take something from the second figure, stuffing it out of sight underneath a cloak or a jacket before turning on her heel to walk away. Umi's heart leapt to her throat when she realized the girl was walking up the small incline, straight towards them.

She instinctively seized Eli's upper arm as gravel crunched underneath worn shoes, but Eli had already stepped out in front of the girl's path.

In the brightness of the moonlit night, Umi saw very familiar steel-blue eyes looking back at her underneath the rough fabric of a frayed cloak and messy, straw-coloured bangs.

Whether the utter silence that pressed down on them like a black hole lasted only a brief heartbeat or several lifetimes, she couldn't be sure.

The cerulean stare flipped from blank surprise to rage in a single blink. " _What_ … are you doing here?"

Umi could not associate that tone, colder than antarctic winter, with the girl who had once offered her red beans as a drink, not knowing it wasn't a beverage. The memory had never felt so distant, as though it had been created centuries ago, from someone else's lifetime. Her fingers tightened involuntarily on the handle of her bow, but there was nothing to shoot at. This was not an enemy she could fight—and Umi didn't think she could remember ever feeling so helpless before.

"Alisa…" Eli's voice was barely audible; she had her hand over her mouth.

"Why are you here?" There was a slight tremor in the younger Ayase's voice now as she faced them, sweeping the hood of the cloak off an unkempt head of blonde hair. "Why are you bothering, after all this time?"

Eli did not answer her, nor did Umi expect her to, as she both saw and felt her tense just beside her.

"You show up, after all this time… for what?" Alisa accused them, the tremble in her slight shoulders visible even in the moonlight underneath the fabric of her cloak. "What is there for you—all of you—to possibly do here?" For the first time, her voice cracked, a quiver of familiar vulnerability that tugged at the faint memories from nearly a decade ago as she continued. "Did any of you even _try_ to find out what happened four years ago? Or were you all just trying to avoid me because of what happened? Is that it? It is because you're all scared of me because of what I've become?"

Umi felt horrifyingly numb as the words rained down like blows—but if _she_ was feeling this way, then she couldn't imagine how they were affecting the young woman beside her.

There was the scuffle of shoes on rock as Maki stalked forward, aggressively bristling and rigid with anger as she took a few steps towards Alisa. "Are you shitting me? Do you even know—"

Clarity seized her blank mind for a single moment as Umi strode forward and gripped the back of Maki's shirt before the redhead could continue, dragging her backward a few steps. Maki spun around, fury and anguish blazing in her lilac gaze as she wrenched the back of her shirt out of Umi's grip. " _What_? Don't stop me, Umi! Are you going to just stand there and let her—"

Her breath shallow and rapid, as though she'd run a marathon, Umi grasped Maki's elbow again, jerking her head in Eli's direction to stop the redhead's tirade in its tracks. Maki opened her mouth heatedly again as if to argue, but closed it when she processed the expression on Eli's face, allowing Umi to pull her to a distance to where they couldn't hear what Alisa was saying anymore.

Maki made no more efforts to free herself from her grip, but she still turned her head angrily in her direction when she finally stopped. The uncharacteristically husky quality to her voice spoke volumes to Umi about how much Alisa's words had affected her—had affected them all. "How can you just stand here and let her say all that, Umi? She cast a helpless glance back in Eli's direction. "She doesn't know…" Maki trailed off.

Pain seized her heart like an icy fist as Umi forced herself to meet the redhead's gaze. "Because she doesn't know. That's the answer. It's not… this isn't up to us to tell her. You know that." Her fingers unconsciously tightened on Maki's sleeve as the rumble of a car's engine interrupted the remainder of what she wanted to say, but could not find words for.

Both of them whipped around at the sound—it was a car very much like the one that Toujou had commissioned to bring them to Tokyo's outskirts to begin with, and Umi narrowed her eyes when the unmistakeable figure of Tokyo's head of state stepped out delicately, brushing dark violet bangs back in the wind. _W-What is_ she _doing here?_

Caught between some form of awe and disbelief, she could only gape at the purple-haired woman, who had spotted the three of them and began walking purposefully in their direction, flanked by two bodyguards. Umi stared at the district ruler as she approached, too stunned by her appearance to force her body into making some semblance of a proper greeting, but Toujou was not looking at either her or Maki as she stopped some distance away from them.

With a jolt, Umi realized that Toujou was staring at Eli. Her amber eyes widened as she read the emotion in her emerald gaze: a combination of pity and regret. There was something else in the other woman's expression, but she didn't have the time to work out what it was before there was a sharp intake of breath from Maki, and she suddenly swept past her in Toujou's direction. Umi raised her free arm to stop her, but her gesture was completely ignored by the redhead as she strode toward the district leader.

Umi chased after her in a hurry, unsure of what Maki was up to now and unwilling to know if she wanted to find out; she cast a cursory, pathetic glance back in Eli's direction before she caught up with her friend.

"What are _you_ doing here?" There was absolutely no trace of respect in Maki's voice as she confronted the violet-haired woman, hands balled into fists at her side. Umi caught the eye of Toujou's two bodyguards, and knew that there was a fine line between where Maki was now and the point where they would see fit to intervene.

Toujou looked away from Eli before giving Maki the same smile Umi had always seen her wear during televised senate meetings and media conferences. "Dr. Nishikino, I presume?" Her voice was serenely composed, a stark contrast to the bitter disdain in Maki's words.

She ignored the question. "I asked you what you're doing here."

Umi resisted the dire temptation to clamp her hand over Maki's mouth before the redhead got them both arrested.

The corner of Toujou's mouth twitched in what might have been amusement. "I believe I sponsored this meeting? I think that that allows me the privilege to see how it progresses."

Maki let out a low growl. "I'm sure you have better things to do than to come out here in the middle of the night just to see what's up."

Toujou did not answer as her gaze slid past the redhead, back to where Eli was still standing, frozen, on the dirt path a few feet away from the smaller figure of her younger sister. Umi watched the expression in the violet-haired woman's eyes soften as she returned to watching the blonde; she furrowed her brows in confusion as she observed the silent, one-way interaction. _Why does she care so much?_

Loose pebbles were ground underneath high heels as Maki squared her shoulders in front of the district ruler, looking from her back to Eli more than once, as if to confirm what she was seeing. "I know what's going on here," she snarled in a low voice, abandoning all pretense of civility as she pointed a finger at Toujou to punctuate her statement. "I don't give a crap about who you are." She took a long breath in through her nose before she continued. "If you hurt her, I swear to god, I'll make you pay."

Toujou looked down at the redhead as though her words had been nothing more than innocuous entertainment to her, the small, knowing smile on her face widening by the tiniest margins as she narrowed her eyes. "Oh my. You're a troublesome one… aren't you, Dr. Nishikino?" She neatly tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her right ear with a gloved hand. "But are you sure you want to trouble yourself with worrying about me at the moment? I think there are more important people right now that deserve your concern, do they not?"

Umi could almost see the anger threatening to explode out of Maki as she spluttered something incoherent before movement below them distracted her. Alisa had pushed past her older sister, giving the three of them standing above her a furious look as she swiped angrily at her chin with a hand. She passed them on her way down a different path that led back into the heart of the ruined buildings below, breaking into a run when she reached a fallen lamppost before she disappeared into the darkness.

Leaving Maki behind, Umi hesitantly made her way back to Eli. She tried to keep her footsteps light and unobtrusive, but the rough path carved out by explosives and fallen rubble made it difficult. Eli was standing perfectly still—like she'd become a statue carved of ice. One of her hands was clenched into a tight fist that made her knuckles stand out even in the dim shadow of night.

When she put her hand on Eli's shoulder, it wasn't even immediately obvious that the blonde even heard her approach. Umi swallowed, the back of her throat suddenly a ball of sandpaper as she tried to clear it unsuccessfully.

"Eli." Even to herself, her voice sounded tenuous at best. Instinct demanded that she ask Eli if she was okay, before Umi realized how wildly inappropriate that was. _Can she be okay? Is it even possible for her to_ be _okay after this?_

For several long, agonizing minutes, Eli did not reply. When she finally turned to look at Umi, her face was like a mask, emotionless features etched into her pale skin. She quickly brushed her other hand against her face before she spoke in a hoarse, defeated voice, turning around to return the way they'd come from.

"Let's go."


	11. Reincarnation

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** Reincarnation - Kurono Kiria (CV Nanjou Yoshino)

* * *

 _"It took me a long time to finally learn how to stop focussing on myself, how I felt, and what I wanted to do. It was a lesson that was perhaps the hardest for me to learn, but it was one I thought I'd never forget—until I stood face-to-face with my younger sister again._

 _I'd spent four years wondering what_ I _needed to do to meet her again, and four years thinking about the things_ I'd _already tried and done. Not for a moment in those four years did I think about what she might've experienced in that same time frame._

 _How could I have been so stupid?" —Ayase Eli_

* * *

Eli stared blankly at the illuminated screen of her phone, chin resting on the surface of the dining table with one arm extended in front of her, the other curled around her face as though it could shield her from everything she didn't want to deal with at the moment.

It was already 1120 in the morning, but she felt no actual need to move from where she was currently sitting.

Umi and Maki had tiptoed around her like mice ever since their meeting with Alisa three days ago. They spoke in low voices if she was in earshot and whenever they were home, huddled in corners of the apartment that she wasn't currently occupying, no doubt deep in discussion about how to best broach the topic with her. A few times, Maki had made what she thought was an attempt to talk to her, before being stopped by Umi.

Eli wasn't completely sure she even wanted to entertain the _thought_ of discussing her sister with her friends. She was certain that Umi could only offer her murmured words of sympathy and Maki would only tell her to get over it, because Alisa wasn't worth her time if she was going to act that way.

But she was neither looking for nor did she want their empathy. _I just want to know… what I'm supposed to do now._

Trying to actually process the question and all its uncertain possibilities was like trying to cup a handful of water between her fingers as though it was something tangible—a doomed effort before she could even begin to really try.

Suddenly, the desperate, overwhelming need to get away—to just _run_ —consumed her, restless, pent-up energy flooding her limbs as Eli stood up, bolting to the door, wrenching it open and slamming it behind her as she half-raced down the stairs in her abrupt need to escape.

The bright summer sunshine outside seemed like a personal insult to her inner wasteland as she stalked through the campus grounds, purposeful in the sense that her body needed to exhaust the helpless apprehension festering just underneath her skin, but purposeless in the sense that she had nowhere to go. She gritted her teeth at the chatter of passing college students, unable to harbour a single shred of tolerance for someone else's bright mood when it so contrasted her own.

The streets of Tokyo outside were no better, as Eli scoured the neighbourhood for something that could potentially be an outlet for the feelings she was keeping precariously bottled inside. It took all of her self-control not to snap at a passerby who had accidentally bumped into her and she had to dig her nails into the skin of her palms to remind herself where she was.

 _Why didn't I try to find her sooner? Why didn't I try harder?_

She wanted to strangle her own thoughts—not because she didn't want to listen, and not because she wanted to push them away, but because she knew they contained an indelible truth and it would hurt beyond what she was willing to bear that this moment to accept.

Listlessly, Eli found herself at the waterfront of Tokyo Bay without any memory or awareness of how she'd gotten there. She stared out across the water, but could find nothing in its blue waves except the memory of the faint scar etched into the skin around Alisa's collarbone, staring at her like an accusing eye, demanding to know why she hadn't put the pieces together sooner.

 _"You promised me you would come and get me. Don't… don't you know how long I waited for you?"_

The recollection made her squeeze her eyes shut as she bent down, driven by agitation and picked up a rock, throwing it as hard as she could into the waters of the bay, not sure what to do with all the regret and pain. It felt like a billion insects crawling underneath the surface of her skin, ripping her from head to toe, the barbed wire spooling out to form a garrotte.

Part of her wanted to run away and never look back—and briefly, very briefly, Eli wondered in one insanity-driven moment, if Toujou had foreseen the outcome of her request. She had a vague memory of seeing the violet-haired woman last night, but she had been too caught up in her own emotional turmoil to even address her.

As she paced, she was no closer to the answer to her question than she had been trapped in their apartment. _Is it worth it for me to keep trying to reach out to her, even after what's happened?_

She found that she was _afraid_ of the answer, not knowing—and unsure if she wanted to know—the amount of anguish it would bring, and yet unwilling to continue forward in fear of that answer.

Heartbeat far too rapid against her sternum, she finally sat down on a rock that jutted out from the descent into the water, unsettled energy finally spent as she tightened her arms just underneath her bra, leaving her untied hair free to be tugged by the wind.

She sat there, watching the sunlight play with the swell of the waves and heard the occasional shriek of a seagull; she was unsure of how much time had actually passed until cold numbness crept up her arms and legs, a product of sitting still in one position for far too long.

Picking herself up, Eli momentarily wondered what her next destination would be as she slowly made her way back up to the street that lined the waterfront, knowing that she didn't want to return home only to face Umi and Maki eying her with pity that stabbed her like thorns. She was sick of trying to keep her emotions to herself, but showing that emotion in front of her friends was a prospect that was undeniably worse.

 _It'll only make me do something useless. Like cry._

The melody of a song broke into her thoughts as she reached the pavement. It was familiar, but Eli couldn't place it until she turned in the direction of the sound, spotting the same girl that she'd seen at the bayfront over a week ago.

Her blue eyes widened when she realized that the girl hadn't done what she'd told her to do, and her sudden anger lent renewed strength into her lower legs as she strode towards the girl with every intention of berating her for not listening.

She didn't make it there, though, before a man in a group of passersby suddenly reached out to shove her to the ground, scattering her long silver hair in a pool around her. Eli felt her breath hitch in her chest as she watched.

"You Edenra scum need to get out of Tokyo," he growled at the girl. "Leeching our resources and tryin' to scam us of our money. Who d'you think you're trying to fool with that act of yours, huh?"

Before she was in range to intervene, a civil officer that had been patrolling the waterfront thrust his way to the front of the small crowd that was gathering. "Hey! Unprovoked violence is the grounds for an arrest," he told them, waving them off with both hands, one of them clutching a police baton. "Get outta here."

Eli looked down at the concrete, knowing full well that if one of the passersby had tried to push _her_ over that way, she could've easily pressed charges if not get the man arrested right then and there on the grounds of assault.

The civil officer continued to stand over the girl, making no move to help her back up as the crowd dispersed, muttering angrily. "Get outta here, kid," he told her. "You've got no family registry in Tokyo, so if you're unlucky next time, I can't help you." With that, he turned to walk away, evidently uninterested in her wellbeing as he returned to his patrol.

Eli hesitantly approached her; her anger at the fact that the girl clearly hadn't made any attempts to abide by what she'd told her had all but evaporated.

Just like their previous encounter, the young girl looked around in her direction the moment she drew close, scrambling back up and smoothing out her dirty dress.

"Why are you back?" Her voice was a lifeless croak, but Eli was past caring about that now—she probably hadn't spoken aloud to anyone properly in days.

The girl jerked her head up in surprise, clearly having recognized her voice even though it was almost indistinguishable to herself. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I promised you."

Eli felt the slender fingers of one hand curl into a fist, though the enemy in front of her wasn't one she could see, hear, or touch. "What makes you come back… over and over? When you know how much these people hate you?"

Her breath caught in her throat when she realized how much of an echo that question was of her own circumstances, but with difficulty, she buried the knife of panic that suddenly rose in her chest.

Underneath the bandana that hid her ruined eyes, the girl smiled, though it was wistful and drawn, an expression that inexplicitly reminded Eli of her younger sister. "Because I have to rely on other people to survive," she told her, in a soft voice that belied her young age. "The only thing I know how to do is smile, so…" She trailed off, tilting her head slightly in the afternoon breeze before she continued. "But you know… I understand their hate. It was someone from our district, after all, that started Bloody Valentine."

"But… aren't you a victim of that day?" Eli asked her, confused.

"Yes. But still, I understand why they're scared. They're afraid it might happen again, just like those of us who live in the outer districts. The things we're scared of… they're the same. We wake up human every morning, and wonder if, by the time we go to sleep again, we'll still be human."

The little girl turned as she finished speaking, moving with a dexterity that did not seem like it belonged to someone who could not see. "I should get back to my sister. Thank you again for coming to see me!" she called over her shoulder as she swiftly descended the rocky path that led to the makeshift bridge spanning across Tokyo Bay with practiced ease.

Eli stood at the side of the street for several minutes, staring at the spot where the girl had disappeared and out over the water of Tokyo Bay, the wind whipping her blonde hair into even more of a mess than it already was. There was something wet on her cheeks, and it was only when she raised a hand to impatiently brush it away that she realized she was crying.

 _We wake up human every morning, and wonder if, by the time we go to sleep again, we'll still be human._

The young girl's voice reverberated in her mind as she repeated the simple statement to herself. A second of clarity lent itself to her thoughts as she did so, stripping away the barbs and edges that had been all they could contain for the last few days.

 _Whatever happens, I only have so much time to speak with her. If I don't keep trying, I'll never get the chance to. Whatever bundle of hurt is waiting for me at the end of this, it can't get any worse than it already is._

Right on cue, as if to punctuate her new resolve, her cellphone rang, buzzing with unnecessary force as she ignored its first few rings before raising it to her ear, noting the number and expecting Koizumi's timid tones as she answered it.

"Hello?"

"Eli-san, it is I."

Eli froze as her mind registered the caller's voice, her tones as delicate and crisp as ever. "Toujou-sama…?"

 _Why is she calling me personally?_ For a moment, she wondered where Toujou had gotten her number, and then she remembered who she was speaking to. _Why isn't she sending this message through Koizumi like she usually does?_

"Can I help you?" To her relief, her voice came out mostly neutral, though she winced at the loud shriek of a seagull landing on the rocks behind her.

"Yes," came the reply on the other end. "If you're prepared to take on a job, that is."

Eli had no doubts that the sentiment underneath the carefully-guarded statement was a subtle reference to the events that the violet-haired woman had witnessed three nights ago, though she had taken care not to bring it up directly.

Her fingers tightened ever so slightly on the metal casing of her cell phone as she stood there. She deliberated for a few, very short seconds. If she declined, Toujou would simply hang up then and there on the pretense of leaving her alone. But she knew herself well enough that if she continued to be left to her own devices about the issue currently at hand, there was a good chance that she would find some way to talk herself out of her own conclusion.

No, she needed something to help keep her from thinking too much.

"No, it's fine." If Toujou detected a sliver of hesitation in her voice, she didn't show it.

"Good. I'd like you to meet me at the Defence Ministry in forty-five minutes."

She hung up.

* * *

Eli had never actually been to the Defense Ministry, though it was a location in Tokyo she knew well enough from her previous work experiences. Still, she couldn't help but feel a small twinge of apprehension as she paused for a moment outside its glass doors, before stepping inside.

Almost immediately, she felt the gaze of no fewer than half a dozen security guards trained on her from various angles, and she narrowed her cerulean eyes at the closest pair standing on either side of an empty desk.

Toujou was already there, speaking with a man she couldn't immediately recognize, though his police uniform gave away his profession. Beside her stood the unwavering presence of Fujiwara Hayato, hands behind his back in gesture of respect, though she privately doubted that he held any respect for anyone in room, except perhaps save Toujou herself. She swallowed a bitter taste of dislike when the man locked eyes with her, disdain filling his gaze almost instantaneously.

Toujou greeted her warmly enough, however, though Eli wasn't one hundred percent sure whether or not she was imagining the slight tone of concern in her voice as Toujou's verdant gaze raked over her features, no doubt taking in the head of blonde hair that she hadn't bothered untangling for a few days and the too-short, chewed-off nailbeds of her fingers.

She refrained from making a comment though, as she returned to speak with who Eli assumed was the chief of police, because he clasped his hands behind his back at once. "Of course, Toujou-sama," she heard him tell her.

While Toujou was occupied, she heard someone come up behind her. Instinct told her that it was Fujiwara, but despite the raw edge of the emotional storm she'd just managed to bury, Eli wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of turning around just to acknowledge him.

Fujiwara spoke in a deep tone that was too low of Toujou to overhear while speaking to the chief of police, like millstones trying to grind gravel. "Don't get too comfortable with your current position, Ayase."

He took a few steps forward so that he was right beside her, almost shoulder to shoulder if it wasn't for his greater height. "I don't know what you're talking about," she hissed back, anger driving out the remaining vestiges of her earlier inner turmoil.

"I sincerely hope that you do not, Ayase-san." She noticed that he'd thrown in the honorific on purpose this time. "But here's the problem as I see it—both of us know the kind of people you've worked with in the past. While it's true our leaks seemed to have stopped since Toujou-sama has hired you, I wouldn't put it past someone of your background to accidentally… let something slip."

Eli slowly clenched the fingers of one hand into a fist before relaxing it, reigning in her temper before she could lose it—a poor decision given the amount of security guards that currently surrounded them.

"Then you'll be looking for a very long time," she said, unable to completely eradicate the hint of a snarl from the sentence.

She caught the corner of his mouth quirk upwards in an expression she couldn't immediately identify. "Don't think you're untouchable just because you happened to be there on the right day and at the right time to save Toujou-sama's life. She may have taken a liking to you, but remember, I warned you—I _will_ be watching you. That will not be changing anytime soon."

He strode in front of her just as Toujou turned around, looking curiously at the two of them. "Is something the matter, Fujiwara-san?" she asked.

"Nothing," he lied smoothly as he clasped his hands behind his back again. "We should get started."

Eli met Toujou's gaze for a single heartbeat, reading the silent question in her emerald gaze before she looked away. While the conversation she'd just had was enough to tip her opinion of Toujou's chief advisor from 'unlikable' to downright obnoxious, she wasn't about to confide her opinion of him to her—especially because she didn't know how much Toujou trusted the man.

She followed the two of them down a darkened hallway, noting the amount of security guards that were following _her_. Finally, the chief of police stopped beside a door at the very end, but Eli didn't have an opportunity to read the small text of the plate beside it before being ushered through the door by one of the security guards.

The room they were in was small, furnished only with two sets of crudely made couches and a computer set; she realized with a jolt where they were when she spotted a large, stainless still gurney alongside a wall.

Toujou beckoned for her to sit down before one of the security guards went over to the gurney, and picked up a small device sealed away in an evidence bag. Toujou took it from him and placed it on the low table before her before speaking; she recognized the object in the clear bag as a cellphone.

"As you're probably aware, Samejima Sho was killed during the riot held in front of the district building last week. Based on the police department's report, he received a phone call less than thirty minutes before he left to join the riot. He also received a text message approximately fifteen minutes before he was killed. However…" Toujou picked up the bag with the broken cellphone in it. "He had custom security firmware that was installed on his phone sometime before he died that the police department has not been able to bypass." She gave Eli her familiar, half-smile as she continued. "I was hoping you would be able to."

She put down the bag and slid it halfway across the table.

Eli could feel the angry stare of Fujiwara Hayato burning into the back of her neck as she reached out to take the phone in the evidence bag. It was unusually heavy for a phone of its size, and she frowned when she turned it over, noting the amount of damage present on its back.

"I can try," she said, not wanting to promise something that she couldn't guarantee she could accomplish. _Especially since he had something that the police department couldn't break into._ Not that she put much stock into the police department's capabilities, considering the amount of corruption that ran rampant in Tokyo's streets even with their presence.

Toujou gestured towards the computer. "Please."

One of the security guards removed the phone from the bag for her, plugging it into the computer as its screen blinked to life, clearly not wanting her to touch the phone directly. As it rebooted, Eli noticed the extra lines of text that were briefly displayed on its illuminated surface, before a familiar interface demanded a password.

If she hadn't worked for several high profile businessmen who had wanted their phones encrypted with a very similar firmware, she was fairly confident that she wouldn't have had the necessary knowledge to bypass it. As things were, however, it didn't take her very long before she was able to crack it, the data on the phone showing up as a separate folder on the computer's screen.

She heard the rustle of cloth against rough fabric as Toujou stood up behind her.

Eli scrolled through the files in the various folders, picking the one she wanted as she heard both Toujou and Fujiwara approach the computer desk soundlessly.

The final phone call that Samejima had received was recorded in the phone's data log. There would be no way of listening to that conversation, but the log would've still recorded the number that he had been called from. She turned her head slightly in cynical surprise as she scanned the data—the caller's number was not assigned to a Tokyo area code.

Samejima's final, unopened text message contained only two words: _Scarlet Snow._

She stared at those two words for a heartbeat before she remembered where she'd seen them before—in the files off Tenjoin Ryosuke's computer that she had obtained for Toujou the very first time they'd met.

Eli half-glanced back at Toujou, but the violet-haired woman wasn't looking at her—she was staring at the screen in front of them. In the darkness of the room, Fujiwara's expression was unreadable.

Toujou pressed a long, gloved finger against the last phone number recorded in the phone's data. "Can you look this up?" The tone of her voice was tantamount to the fact that, she too, was aware of the fact that it was not a Tokyo-area phone number.

"I can," Eli replied hesitantly, giving her another look over her shoulder, "but that most likely means breaking into another district's government records." Their eyes met for a fleeting moment, and in that moment, she knew that both of them were thinking the same thing.

The district ruler's face was impassive in the half-illumination of the brightness of the computer screen, but there was no mistaking the intensity in her green gaze. "You have my authority to do so."

Fujiwara's shoulder and arm twitched beside her, as though he wanted to make a move to stop her physically, before he controlled himself with visible effort. Eli didn't need to see the expression on his face to distinguish his disapproval as she turned back to the screen in front of her.

A quick search told her that the number was from the Kyoto region. Opening up the Kyoto District government database, she hesitated for a second. _If this was anybody but her, I would've asked them if they were sure they wanted me to do this._ But Eli was painfully aware of whom she _was_ speaking to—and the expression of the woman in question had not changed.

Turning her attention back to the screen, she was in Kyoto's government database in minutes. Quickly setting the computer to search for a match to the phone number found in Samejima's call log, it was several minutes before the system found a match.

The name beside it was _Misawa Shou_ —a name she instantly recognized. She clicked into his file without waiting for a direction from Toujou, scrolling down until she found what she was looking for. Reading through his list of offices, she found the building that she had once located for Toujou—as well as the address for his business partner in Tokyo.

Eli narrowed her eyes at the name. Izayoi Tetsu was a name that she recognized, but she didn't want to voice that knowledge aloud.

"Izayoi is one of this city's biggest financial contributors," Fujiwara growled behind her. "Surely you don't think he could be involved in this."

"What you see and what the truth is can be two completely different things," Toujou responded sweetly. She reached over Eli's shoulder and tapped something onto the computer, bringing up Tokyo's own government database in a few moments. She entered Izayoi's name into the registry and waited for his file to load.

Scrolling down with one slender finger, she paused under Izayoi's employment history—confirming what Eli already thought she knew.

"He was Samejima's old business partner, before the events of Bloody Valentine," Toujou read aloud. Her voice was still calm, but it had lost its delicate tone as Eli watched the muscles in her arm tense ever so slightly before she turned around, rearranging her long braid of plum-coloured hair. "I think this warrants an investigation, do you not, Advisor?"

* * *

Nozomi sat in her chair in her conference room, arms wrapped around her knees in a posture of formality, even though the camera would not be able to pick it up.

It was the day after she'd called Ayase Eli into the Defence Ministry and the discovery of the contents of Samejima Sho's cellphone. If truth was told, she had expected the young woman to decline her offer—which was why Nozomi had seen fit to call her personally. She didn't know the extent of how badly her meeting with her younger sister had affected her, but if her inadvertent display of emotion in her office had been any indication, then the past few days wouldn't have been easy on her.

But Eli's voice had sounded surprisingly steady over the phone, and Nozomi had not been prepared for her disheveled, haggard appearance when blonde had finally shown up at the Defence Ministry. It would've been appropriate for her to address it, but she had a feeling that Eli wouldn't have wanted her to bring it up, especially in front of Fujiwara.

 _Speaking of Fujiwara…_ She knew with absolute certainty that her advisor had said something to her while she had been speaking to the chief of police. He had lied easily to her face when she'd asked him about it; while she didn't expect him to admit it in front of Eli, she also didn't expect the recalcitrant young woman to disclose what he'd said to her either—she didn't exactly volunteer that kind of information unless there was a _very_ good reason for her to do so, and Nozomi didn't think Fujiwara was at the top of her list at the moment.

Nonetheless, her advisor's irritation with her was more than obvious, and she wondered where it had stemmed from. _If it was just because I hired her over the people he recommended, he's still going a little too far, even for him._ She wondered if it was because someone had told him about their meeting in the garden after the assassination attempt—a fact that was sure to infuriate him further than he already was, mainly because he didn't approve of her spending time with people that weren't in his favour.

She knew why _that_ was, of course—the more dissenting opinions she got from other people, the less likely she was to listen to him.

 _If I'm honest, that's_ exactly _why I wanted to spend more time with her. I've never interacted with someone who didn't grow up privileged and self-serving in my entire life… because that's not the life I was raised to live._ The fact that the young woman had saved her life was just another reason why she wanted to know her better—the way that Eli had dismissed it made her feel more uncomfortable than it really should have. _Perhaps it's because I've only known people who would have done it only because it would allow them to demand something in return. Still, am I being too obvious?_ She resisted the temptation to press her lips together. _Oh well._

"Toujou-sama, the conference is ready." One of her attendants spoke at her side as she looked up, dismissing her thoughts. She had plenty of time to muse about other subjects later—right now, she had a meeting scheduled with Izayoi Tetsu, although she hadn't informed the man the reason for their call. She had spoken to him in the past, as he had been the one to help finance the rebuilding of Tokyo after Bloody Valentine, and he was a frequent guest at political meetings open to the public, but she found herself unusually nervous as she nodded for one of her tech specialists to begin the conference.

The screen in front of her crackled to life, and Izayoi Tetsu's face appeared in front of her. He had thick, bushy black hair despite his age, and there was a slight grin on his face as he greeted her. From the way he was looking at her, it appeared that no one had already informed him the contents of their meeting today, which suited Nozomi just fine as it would give her the opportunity to read his intent.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting, Toujou-sama?"

"I'd like to ask you about the death of Samejima Sho," she responded without preamble, though she was careful to maintain a cheerful, non-threatening tone. "As I understand it, he was your old business partner."

She watched him carefully as he paused. There was a little bit of tension around his shoulder that had not been present previously. "Yes," he said slowly, dragging out his words. "I heard about his death. A shame—he had good ideas for the future of this city."

"Did you agree with them?" she prompted gently.

Izayoi looked uncomfortable, crossing his arms, as though their conversation wasn't at all going in the way he thought it would. "I-I'm not a policitian, Toujou-sama. I really couldn't say."

"So you didn't have any contact with him at all before he died, Izayoi-san?" she pressed harder, knowing discomfort when she saw it. Izayoi might have been a practiced liar, just like most of her senate and advisors, but over the years, Nozomi had found that she had a particular knack for drawing out the truth in the most unorthodox of ways. She gave him a small, sad half-smile as she continued. "I'd just like to find out what I can about his death. As you know, he opposed the policy that I proposed, so…" She trailed off purposefully, leaving what she knew would be the impression that she wanted to clear her own name from suspicion.

"No, Toujou-sama," Izayoi offered, somewhat weakly. "We hadn't spoken in some time before he died."

Instinct and years of speaking to politicians and businessmen alike allowed her to keep her face impassive. "Is that so? Would you care to explain, then, the call made from your current business partner's number in Kyoto to his personal cell phone an hour before he died?"

Izayoi paled, before his face twisted into a snarl that he did his best to erase as fast as possible. Even if hadn't been for the fact that Eli had confirmed his involvement through further digging of his personal files that morning, she would've known without a doubt that he was a man who had just been caught in a lie.

"Wh-I don't know what you're talking about, Toujou-sama!" he spluttered.

Nozomi allowed her smile to widen by the smallest margin. "Unfortunately, your records say otherwise."

He visibly gnawed his bottom lip through the video conference. "I thought there was a brief period of time this morning that my files had been opened on my server. It was you, wasn't it?" he muttered, all pretense of not knowing gone.

"Tell me," she said softly, abandoning her previous façade of friendliness as she continued. "The innocent victims of the riot in the hospital you planned to bomb in three days—do their lives mean nothing to you? You killed someone who supported your goals… for what?"

His face contorted into a dark expression of frustration and rage. "I don't expect someone as young as you to understand, Toujou-sama. The Ceresis need to be eliminated—along with the Edenra victims that you sympathize with so much. It's unfortunate that you can't see that, especially since there are so many in this city that can."

Nozomi stood up, but she felt icily calm as she addressed him once more. "I can't allow that. If you do not surrender yourself to the district of Tokyo within twenty-four hours, then I will be forced to take action."

Izayoi uncrossed his arms as he stood too. "You're welcome to try," he laughed, hanging up the video call before she could make the order to.

For a few minutes, all Nozomi could do was stand there, unable—or unwilling—to believe the words that the businessman had just said to her. Her blood felt like fire in her veins as she paced, ignoring the shocked exclamations from her attendants.

She had absolutely no doubt that there were at least a few private military corporations owned by Izayoi in the city, although there was a chance the mercenaries that belonged to it wouldn't be willing to fight against the district. _Was it him? Was he the one who tried to kill me in my meeting with President Tenjoin?_ It was a possibility, although she didn't think it was a large one. Izayoi was a power-hungry man who liked his money, but it would take a lot more than money to hire a sniper of that calibre. The unknown sniper had been both discreet and careful—two qualities that he had just proven he so conspicuously lacked.

She raised a hand to silence the amount of noise in the conference room. "Call a meeting," she said firmly. "Any private military corporation willing to respond to a job from the district is to meet at the Defence Ministry in two hours."


	12. Ready to Suffer, Ready to Hope

_"If there's one damned thing I've learned from this city, it's that once you expect something in return for a good deed, you might as well not do it at all. Politicians, businessmen, private military corporations… they're all the same. They pretend to care about this city so that they can get what they want. But what I hate more than anything else are the few self-centred cowards at the very top of Tokyo's food chain—who will use anything from anyone to justify the means to their ends." —Nishikino Maki_

* * *

"You did _what_?"

Nozomi stared down the furious chestnut gaze of her advisor as he—admittedly—towered over her in her office. She raised a dark violet eyebrow in his direction. "I scheduled a conference with Izayoi and told him we knew what he was planning."

She had a feeling that Fujiwara was furious enough to reach over and shake her by the shoulders, but had the self-restraint not to want to land in front of a firing squad. "Why— _What_ made you think that was a good idea?"

There were two answers to that question. One of them was the answer Nozomi was sorely tempted to give to her advisor, especially given how he had initially protested the idea of an investigation into Izayoi. The other, born from the tenuous, perhaps naïve, hope that she could have reached an understanding with him, was the truth—albeit a truth she did not want to voice aloud at the moment.

She closed her eyes for a brief heartbeat, shutting out her advisor's words before opening them again and fixing her emerald gaze on his livid features. If it weren't for the fact that she had less than an hour before she had be present for the conference with the private military corporations, Nozomi might've thoroughly enjoyed the process of getting on Fujiwara's nerves. "I merely believed that we could come to an understanding if I spoke to him in person," she finally replied.

"Instead, you gave him an opportunity to strike first," he retorted. "I thought you wanted to _stop_ his attack on that hospital? Now you've given him the chance to do so before we can even gather a force to stop him."

Turning her head slightly in his direction, Nozomi gave him a small half-smile. "Did you really believe that I would call him without thinking of that first, Advisor? Security has already been deployed to the hospital in question, as well as the police department. Besides," she added, rather amused by how purple in the face Fujiwara was getting. "Izayoi will not strike the hospital first."

"What makes you so sure of that?"

Nozomi turned away from him as she faced the windows looking out into the district building's grounds. "Because he intended to hide his involvement in the attacks by hiring companies from another district, who were scheduled to arrive in Tokyo two days from now. I doubt they are still coming." When Fujiwara did not immediately reply, she went on. "Did you really think, Advisor, that the death of innocent victims is what Izayoi is after? No. What he wants is the public opinion of the Edenra victims—or myself, perhaps—to become so low that I will have no choice but to agree to the railgun module that President Tenjoin proposed in the last district meeting to wipe out the Ceresis in order to maintain my position. That will not happen if it comes to light that the one behind the terrorist incidents in Tokyo is him."

She heard him pace a few steps behind her. "And if he purchases an airplane ticket and tries to escape the district before then?"

The corners of her mouth quirked upwards in an anticipatory smile. "I think he'll find that it will be more difficult than he thinks it is for him to leave Tokyo."

Finally placated, Fujiwara glowered at her for a few more seconds before stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "Very well," he acquiesced finally, before his tone shifted into an accusatory one. "But you are to inform me before you schedule meetings like this again."

Settling back down at her desk, Nozomi watched as he turned on his heel and closed the door behind him with a snap. The one thing that she hadn't brought up in front of him was that she was sure Izayoi was not acting alone. Unfortunately, nothing in his files had turned up who he might've been working for—she suspected that Izayoi himself didn't even know. For him to plan two separate, hasty attempts to lower the public's opinion of the New Edenra Law meant that there was something in it for him. While she wouldn't have put that _something_ past him to be money, she had a feeling that that wasn't it.

 _Oh well. We'll find out soon enough._

Nozomi picked up the phone on her desk, and picked out the number for her secretary from its display before placing the receiver to her ear. It rang only once before it was picked up, and she couldn't resist a smile when Koizumi's frantic tones came over the speakers. "T-Toujou-sama!" she squeaked. "H-How can I help you?"

"Please make sure that Kouchou informs everyone who attends the conference at the Defense Ministry that anyone who would like to decline the job is to leave immediately. Once they have heard what the job is, they will not be able to decline." She heard the furious scratch of pen on paper as Koizumi hastily scribbled down what she'd just said, and Nozomi paused, waiting for her to finish.

"O-Of course, Toujou-sama. Is there anything else?"

"No, that'll be all." Nozomi hung up; she decided that she needed to get some fresh air before she dealt with the issue at hand, even though the afternoon sun was sure to make the grounds outside hotter than ever.

Getting up from her desk and opening the door to her office, she sighed internally when her two ever-present bodyguards followed her; even if it was from a respectable distance, she would never get used to the fact that she would never truly be alone—at least, not in the true sense of the word.

Despite the heat, she found the garden relaxing, as usual. It gave her a little bit of space to think about issues that weren't currently pressing down on her shoulders like it might've weighed the world. _I… didn't ask for this. But there wasn't ever another option for me. I wasn't born to question the world I lived in. I was born to keep the status quo._

Nozomi wasn't sure if she regretted her choice to inherit her father's position. On some days, she was half-convinced the day she'd agreed was the worst decision she had made in her short twenty-five years of life. On the others, she remembered the way her father had ruled Tokyo as its primary politician: the things he had done and the laws that he had enacted—and her own desire to create the change that she wanted to see.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a familiar voice in the corner of the garden. She spotted a head of long, blonde hair—tied into its customary ponytail today—leaning against a column past the leafy branches of a low, wide-boughed maple, speaking to someone over the phone. In spite of the balmy summer weather, Eli was dressed in all black, from her tank top down to her boots.

While Nozomi didn't intend to eavesdrop, she was speaking in a voice that carried over the sound of insects and birds in the lack of a breeze.

"You're… definitely doing this, then?" she heard her ask. There was a pause as the person on the other end of the line said something.

"No, I'm fine," she answered after a few moments, although from the way her body tensed ever so slightly as she said the words, Nozomi didn't think so, at least judging from her body language. "I… still have to try. Even if the result isn't the answer I'm looking for. You said it yourself, Umi—I'll regret it more if I did nothing, knowing I had a chance to do something."

They had arrived at the topic of her younger sister. Nozomi knew enough about the situation to understand the gist of what Eli was talking about. She had meant to ask her about it, but somehow, the act sounded intrusive, even in her head. _Because… in the grand scheme of things, I don't really know her that well at all. Especially since it didn't turn out the way she wanted it to._

If truth was told, Nozomi knew she shouldn't have been surprised at the outcome. Edenra victims had been marginalized and oppressed by the rest of Tokyo for nearly a decade—her first visit into the outskirts of Tokyo was enough to tell her that anyone who lived there for any amount of time would've inevitably adopted that vicious mindset no matter when they had become a victim themselves.

 _Even when I offered to find her sister for her in exchange for her skills, I didn't know for sure it would end up like this._ She had had her suspicions, though, when Ayase Alisa's record in the city's database did not extend past February 2026. _That's why I tried to warn her. Sometimes, the answers we want to find most are the answers we have the hardest time accepting._ Her gloved hands tightened ever so slightly into a fist as Nozomi recalled her past, before she forcibly shoved it out of her mind.

On the other side of the leaves of the carefully trimmed maple, Eli listened to the phone for several long minutes before she spoke again. "Because most people are selfish and ungrateful," she unflinchingly stated at last. "The sad truth is that they usually need a terrible experience to make them appreciate what they had, but it doesn't take long for most of them to forget about it. _We_ don't forget why things ended up like this because we're constantly being reminded of it every single day, but we're not most people. I've worked for plenty of people like him in the past. He sits up in his office all day and he makes more money ordering people around for an hour than I do in a month, just like he used to do before all of this ever happened. Do you think he really knows— or even _cares_ —what Tokyo was like in October 2022?"

Unexpectedly, ice crept over her limbs as Nozomi listened to what Eli was saying. _Is_ that _how she really sees us?_ Mildly surprised that she found the prospect bothered her more than she thought it would, she turned to walk away.

 _I suppose… I'll just have to ask her about it the next time I see her._

* * *

Umi lowered the phone from her ear as she hung up.

Icy rage pounded through her veins as she repeated what Eli had just told her over the phone to herself. "How dare he…" she muttered furiously under her breath. She felt restless; her fingers itched to grab her bow off its hook on the wall and against her better judgment, she wanted to storm over to the downtown office that Izayoi worked from that very moment, even though she knew it would be nothing less than suicidal for her to go alone.

"What?" Maki was settled on her favourite chair; she had been staring up expectantly at her for the entire duration of the phone call as she twirled a lock of dark red hair with a finger, the suspicious, worried expression on her face darkening with every response. "I know that look, Umi. _What_ did she say?"

"Izayoi Tetsu was the one behind Samejima's murder," she ground out. The redhead raised an eyebrow in an expression of fleeting, disgusted surprise, but Umi wasn't done yet. Anger made her tone harsher than she had intended it to be as she continued. "That's not all. He had plans to bomb the university hospital where all the riot victims were next."

There was a brief pause that lasted perhaps a quarter of a second.

"That bastard," Maki hissed, the fingers of both hands curling into fists on the surface of her desk, a look of abhorrence crossing her face as she stood. "Why?" she burst out. She took a few steps forward angrily, stopping just short of the gurney Umi had been leaning against while she had been speaking on her phone; bowing her head slightly, her right hand came down in a slam against its corner. "Exactly how the hell did he plan to do this?" she asked between gritted teeth.

"He hired mercs from another district," Umi replied grimly, understanding all too well how Maki was feeling at the moment. "The police weren't able to crack Samejima's phone—that's why nobody knew about any of this until now."

Maki gave her a sideways glance underneath red bangs. "Eli did?"

She nodded. "She traced his last calls to someone in Kyoto who was Izayoi's business partner. Toujou-sama ordered an investigation, so she decided to look in his personal files to see if there was anything else incriminating."

The redhead's stiff, angry posture relaxed by a tiny margin as she straightened. "So…"

"Apparently, Toujou-sama tried to talk to him. She told him he had twenty-four hours to give himself up to the district before she took action. But… It didn't work, so now, she's holding a meeting at Defence Ministry."

"That woman is crazy," Maki muttered under her breath. "I don't see how Eli thinks she's even sane enough to lead this district. _Talking_ to people like _him_?" Revulsion decorated the last syllable of her sentence. "She shouldn't have even bothered and just sent a firing squad to his office the moment she found out. What did she think she could do, talk him out of it?" She narrowed her amethyst eyes at her last sentence thoughtfully. "Or maybe… she was trying to give him an out because he basically funds half this city's construction. Who's to say he isn't running off to the airport now?"

Umi remembered what Eli had told her. "No. She's locked down the airport so the mercs that he hired can't come into Tokyo. But he… is still planning to make a stand against her."

There was a snort from Maki. "For what? He must be as insane as she is if he thinks he can outrun her in Tokyo, then." She looked up at Umi. "You're going, I take it? Is that why Eli finally decided to call you after a few days of pretending we don't exist?"

A slight frown twitched at the corner of her mouth at the way Maki dismissed Eli's behaviour, but it paled in comparison to the fiery determination that burned at the bottom of her resolve. "Of course I'm going," she stated far more calmly than she felt. "The hospital he wanted to bomb is where both you and Kotori work. That's…" She wanted to say ' _unforgiveable'_ , but somehow, the word seemed too tame in comparison to the anger that clenched a frigid fist around her heart.

The redhead finally released the edge of the metal gurney as she shoved it away from her; stalking back toward her desk, she sat back down on her chair with a huff, pressing the fingers of both hands against her closed eyelids in a gesture of frustrated anger. "Guess I can't stop you," she muttered. "People like him give me aneurysms. The sooner we weed them all out of Tokyo, the less toxic this city's going to be."

Checking the time on her phone, Umi noted that she only had a few hours left before Toujou's appointed twenty-four hours of notice. "I better go," she mumbled, picking up her bow and her half-empty sheath of arrows.

"Already?"

She shook her head. "If I want to ensure tonight goes well, I should go pick a few things up from Rin." Her stock of arrows was lower than she would've liked it to be, and since there were unlikely to be Ceresis in the middle of Tokyo, Umi wanted to make sure she had a variety of other options to choose from in the likely case that she ran into some bodyguards or mercs.

In response, Maki pinched the bridge of her nose, but nodded once before she removed her hand from the upper half of her face as Umi turned to go. Her fingers were on the door handle before Maki spoke up again. "By the way… how did Eli sound over the phone?" Her tone was curt and dismissive, as if it had been an errant thought, but there was a hint of concern underneath it.

She thought about it for a moment. "Considering what's happened, she sounds better than she did." Umi winced a little at the memory; she had known for a long time that Eli did not like to share her feelings—or even her true thoughts about certain matters—a habit that made her dangerously prone to mood swings and shutting herself up in her room, refusing to speak to anyone while she deliberated her decisions over and over in her head.

But Umi had never seen her more emotionally distraught than the morning after the three of them had returned from their disastrous trip to Tokyo's outskirts. In the pretense of giving Eli some space, the two of them had huddled in the corners of the apartment that the blonde wasn't occupying, trying to decide how to best approach her. It had taken a considerable amount of effort on Umi's part to restrain Maki from snapping out of frustration.

In truth, all of them were hurting, but none of them knew how to express it—and certainly not in a way that would benefit the person that was hurting the most.

Something had inexplicitly changed, though, when Umi had returned home the day before and found their apartment empty. She had almost been tempted to pull out her phone and call Eli then and there, before she remembered that the gesture, while well-intentioned, would not be taken well. It had bothered her a little that Eli had not returned home after dark fell, knowing there were precious few places that were actually accessible for her, and she had fervently hoped that Eli hadn't done something stupid that she would undoubtedly regret had she been in a better mindframe.

Whatever had changed, it was probably for the best.

"Good," Maki swivelled around in her chair until she was facing her line of samples that she'd left on a gurney she was using as a desk. Behind her, Umi noted that there weren't many incubators that were still in use—a prospect that was usually followed up in a week or two by the redhead complaining about how much she hated dealing with the laboratory technician that doubled as her supplier. "It's about damn time she stopped moping around and figured out what's important and what's not."

Umi allowed herself a small smile at Maki's caustic tone; the affectionate aspect behind it was not lost on her as she turned to push the door of the lab open with one shoulder.

* * *

The setting sun cast an eerie scarlet glow on the ruined buildings of the outer district as Umi carefully stepped past the piles of rubble, intent on avoiding the retuning rumble of military vehicles in the near distance as she made her way to Rin's store.

Swerving around the loud throngs of bounty hunters and mercs alike that were occupying the dusty path lined with haphazard storefronts, it took her longer than she would have liked to reach her destination. Lifting the burlap flap, she poked her head in only to find the orange-haired woman speaking to another customer. Not wanting to seem impatient nor wanting to reveal what she was looking for, Umi dropped the flap of fabric and leaned against the side of the wall just next to the entrance to wait, wondering if Rin had seen her over the man's shoulder.

Whatever the man was buying, it took him nearly ten minutes to come to a consensus with Rin before he left, stuffing something underneath his coat and giving Umi a furtive glance as he passed her by the doorway. She heard a call from within. "Umi-chan, I know nyou're lurking out there!"

Shaking her head a little, Umi let herself in.

Rin had her elbows on her counter, the backs of both hands resting on her chin as she approached. "What can I do for nya today, Umi-chan?"

"You wouldn't happen to have any steel arrows, would you?" she asked, looking around the small store at the collection of weaponry Rin had hanging off the walls.

The orange haired woman gave her a very cat-like grin as she hopped off her stool. "I sure do, but whaddnya need them for, Umi-chan?" she called as she disappeared into the back storage room, tailed by one of her cats. "This isn't for some plan to finally shoot Satou in the back, is it?"

"No, it is _not_!" she snapped instantly.

Rin started to laugh, and she was still laughing when she emerged from the shadows of her back room, a quiver of arrows slung over one arm. "Umi-chan," she giggled, "have you ever heard of a _joke_?"

Knowing that she would only embarrass herself further if she were to reply to that particular question, Umi crossed her arms over her chest.

Still stifling her giggles, Rin set the quiver of arrows down on her countertop. "Really though, Umi-chan, why _do_ you need these?"

Clearing her throat, she took a step closer to the other woman as she lowered her voice. "I have a job to do tonight."

" _Ah._ " There was a moment of hesitation, as though the orange-haired young woman was debating whether or not to say something, before she opened her mouth again. "So Umi-chan, did you find out… what I asked you about last time?"

She had completely forgotten. In light of everything that had happened over the past week, it had completely slipped her mind. Umi felt her fingers tighten ever so slightly. "I'm sorry, Rin," she admitted. "There's… Some things have happened over the last week, and I didn't get a chance to speak to her about it." It was only half the truth; while she trusted Rin and disliked lying on principle, Umi did not think it was necessary—or even appropriate—to divulge in what had happened.

Rin gave her an apologetic, understanding hazel gaze. "It's okay, Umi-chan, I know she's busy. My dad's been bugging me about it, that's all." She made a face. "He said the government wouldn't tell him anything, even though he's such a big backer of the military."

Unable to comment on that particular statement, Umi took the quiver of arrows off of the countertop, and was about to turn to go when Rin tugged on her sleeve. "Speaking of Eli-chan, there's something else, Umi-chan." The quieter volume of her voice combined with the strange hesitancy in its tone made her feel slightly uneasy as Rin leaned in a little closer.

She raised an eyebrow as the other woman continued.

"A few nights ago, someone came into my store and asked for Eli-chan's number."

Jerking her head up in surprise, Umi stared at her. "What? Who was this?"

Rin held up both her hands in a gesture of confusion. "I don't know! I thought it was really weird, because Eli-chan never comes out here… Unless you count that one time when she and Maki-chan came looking for you, and that was a really long time ago."

"Do you remember what they looked like?" she demanded. A chill seemed to have settled on her limbs; despite the heat outside, Umi could feel cold sweat lingering around her shoulder blades.

The orange haired young woman considered it for a moment, putting a finger on her chin as she thought. "Uhm... it was dark, so I couldn't really see much of her face or her clothes. But she had really long blonde hair, and she was using a flower hairpin to keep her bangs off her face. Does that sound familiar to you, Umi-chan?"


	13. only my railgun

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** only my railgun - fripside

* * *

 _"When I stared out across Tokyo after February 14th, 2026, I wondered how a city shrouded in dust and still burned could ever become beautiful again. Over the past four years, it had seen so much death and so much pain that it was like everything that had once made it magnificent had been turned to ash._

 _But I had underestimated the strength of human will and resilience. For the residents that still called this bombed-out, shell of a metropolis a city, it was still home. By the time the cherry blossoms opened their petals once more on the sides of the streets, it was recognizable again._

 _Should tragedy strike this city a third time, will we still have the strength to put everything else down and rebuild it? It frightens me, because I don't know the answer to that question." —Sonoda Umi_

* * *

By the time Umi re-entered the bustle of downtown Tokyo, news of Izayoi Tetsu's impending arrest had already become public knowledge. As she carefully navigated her way through busy streets, it seemed to be the only topic of conversation she could overhear. She gave a sideways glance at a couple sitting in the outdoor patio of a bar, intently discussing the businessman's impromptu fall from grace. _I thought the point of hiring the private military corporations was to_ keep _this from the public?_ By the way Eli had phrased things that morning, it had sounded like Toujou wanted to keep news of Izayoi's arrest hidden from the public until he was locked away in the state prison. _Why would she release this information now?_

She passed a group of mercs who were dressed in clothes too heavily armoured for their purpose to be a night out in downtown Tokyo. Several of them eyed her suspiciously as she walked by; no doubt the bow and quiver of arrows on her back was drawing some unwanted attention, but Umi was used to it by now—the less attention she paid in return, the less likely anyone was to approach her.

 _Unless she_ wants _the public to know?_ She could not quite figure out why Toujou would be eager to inform the public that she was arresting a very public member of the district forum and financial backer of the city's infrastructure, especially when she remembered the conversation she and Eli had had a few weeks ago.

 _"Murder may be illegal, Umi, but that doesn't mean no one does it."_

She was sure that in his past, Izayoi had committed crimes of a similar enough calibre in order to attain his current status; while they hadn't happened recently—at least not in the four years that Toujou had taken over as the head of state from her father—it did not excuse him from his past, to which Umi was sure Toujou had access to. _So why now? Why this time?_

As much as she would have liked to object, Umi also knew that the violet-haired woman's agenda was none of her concern.

A small frown tugged at the corners of her lips as she approached the block where Izayoi's office was located—a crowd had already begun to gather, most of them laughing and holding drinks in their hands, despite the lateness of the hour: 2147, according to her watch. It was the exact level of shamelessness that made her twitch.

 _This… this isn't a show!_ Reaching into the pocket of her jacket, she pulled out the earpiece Eli had given her last time; turning it on, she slipped it into her right ear.

Moments later, it crackled to life. "Umi? Is that you?"

"Yes," she replied. The sound of Eli's voice inexplicably reminded her that there was another conversation waiting for her when the night was over. It took some effort not to blurt what had happened aloud then and there—Umi was painfully aware of the fact that neither of them were alone, and this was very much a conversation she would have preferred to _have_ alone, if it had been her on the receiving end of the news she was about to give.

With that knowledge came a certain degree of apprehension. _I hope I did the right thing._ The _morally_ right thing to do would have been to consult Eli first, but Umi knew the blonde well enough to know that _that_ was a decision she would make and remake several times over the course of a few days before eventually being pushed to a final one. _She told me herself: she still wants to try, even if the result isn't the one she wanted. Who knows how much time she has left to make that happen?_

So Umi had taken the weight of the decision on her own shoulders, and had made it for her. _If anything goes wrong,_ she vowed to herself, _at least Eli can blame me for it instead of herself._

She put the potential ramifications of her choice out of her head, giving the locks of dark blue hair a shake. There would be a time and place to think about it, but now wasn't it.

Squeezing in between two drunk businessmen dressed in dark suits, she found a corner of the street to watch the front entrance of the tall, glass-and-metal building that Izayoi owned and worked out of. "Can you explain to me why Toujou hired so many private military corporations tonight if she's already sent the army to arrest Izayoi?"

There was a pause on the other end. "I don't know," Eli admitted on the other end of the line. "She leaked the news to the media this afternoon, so it's possible she thinks there could be trouble."

" _Is_ she expecting trouble?" Umi asked, unease sharpening her tone as she unconsciously shifted her grip on her bow. "Be honest with me."

Eli hummed thoughtfully in response. "She doesn't do things without a reason," she finally said slowly. "I would be careful, if I were you. She's not offering a ridiculous stipend for tonight because she thinks he's not going to give the army trouble."

"And he's just been sitting in his office the whole day?" Umi clarified, trying to peer over the heads of taller members of the crowd as several soldiers lined up in front of the glass entrance into the foyer of the office building. "He hasn't made any attempt to leave, or contact anyone?"

There was the sound of tapping on the other end of the line. "Not as far as I'm aware," Eli told her. "It's possible that he's been in contact with someone else off of Tokyo's network or his own, but it would have to be done locally—device to device only."

Doubt sent a shiver of ice down her spine as she watched the neat line of soldiers advance into the foyer. "Something's not right here," she muttered, half to herself, half to Eli as the uniformed men disappeared into the elevators at the back of the entrance hall. _Why would he make that kind of attempt to hide his involvement only to come in quietly with the army? It makes no sense._

She half expected the building to erupt in flames or gunfire to split the silence that had settled over the watching crowd, but there was nothing.

Ten minutes later, Izayoi appeared, flanked on either side by at least a dozen soldiers dressed in white. Several angry, mocking shouts exploded from the mob of people gathered on either side of the street, but for the most part, it was silent, as though shock held most of their words prisoner.

The soldiers escorted the man to a waiting car, and in the darkness, despite the light cast by the streetlights illuminating the roadside, she could not make out Izayoi's expression as he was led to the armoured vehicle. The progression of vehicles slowly began to move, parting the members of the crowd who had stumbled out onto the road to get a better look at the disgraced businessman.

In the deepening royal blue sky, the line of vehicles had barely reached the end of the block with a bright flash on top of a building several hundred metres away caught her eye. _That's—_ She was running almost before her body had time to react to what her mind already knew she had seen.

The shot from the sniper bullet blew a hole in the window of the car that Izayoi was in, scattering glass fragments across the smooth pavement and sending the vehicle in a steep swerve before it recovered, righting itself before colliding with the curb. The screech of tires against asphalt grated against her ears as the car veered around the military vehicle at the corner of the closest intersection before speeding out of sight in the darkness.

"Eli," she hissed into her earpiece as she ran, pushing past throngs of people with her bow drawn. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the other mercs and bounty hunters dispersed in the crowd were doing the same.

"Already on it," her friend replied; Umi could hear the rapid click of fingernails on a keyboard as she kept her eyes on the dark corner where the car had disappeared. She skidded to a stop at the intersection a few minutes later, panting hard as she scanned the area, weapon in hand, but nothing to shoot at. "He's on the phone with someone," Eli reported in her ear. "I'm patching you in."

There was a short burst of static from her earpiece. _"…consider yourself lucky,"_ someone was saying. She narrowed her eyes—the voice had obviously been voice filtered and there was no point in trying to decipher who was behind it from its quality alone. _"I do not tolerate carelessness well, Izayoi-san."_

 _"I know."_ Umi recognized that voice as Izayoi's; an unnatural tremble of desperation was present in his normally vociferous tone. _"Just tell me what I need to do."_

There was a brief pause. _"You will meet Aohebi at the appointed place and time. Don't let the police catch you."_ The line went dead.

A small crackle of static announced Eli's return.

"Who was that?" Umi asked, knowing that there was no way to know the answer, but she did not like the cold sweat that had replaced the heat of her run nor the sense of foreboding thatgripped her stomach.

Eli ignored her question. "I'm tracking him with his phone's location. Listen to me, Umi. Whoever that was is probably the one who set up that sniper. There's no way he doesn't know—or realize— that Izayoi's phone line isn't secure. Whoever Izayoi works for could've already given up on him and is trying to lead whoever's after him into a trap. _Be careful."_

"I know," she reaffirmed grimly, the fingers of her right hand tightening on her bow. "Where's he going?"

"I'm sending the coordinates of his car to your phone," Eli told her. "The other private military companies are headed there too." She lowered the volume of her voice. "I'd let them get there ahead of you and scope out your surroundings, if I were you. That'll also give me some time to see if I can't get a site map of wherever he is."

Umi nodded, before she remembered that her friend couldn't see her. "Agreed."

* * *

Shattered, burned out husks of buildings loomed over the water on both sides, their gaping empty eyes glaring down at her. Away from the bright illumination of downtown Tokyo, heavy shadows draped over the manufacturing district. While it remained part of the city that had been rebuilt, piles of rubble had been left everywhere, the bare windows and open doorways of half-rebuilt buildings not uncommon in an area of the city most of its residents never visited.

Umi spotted several military vehicles already, parked near a deserted lane that led down to the businesses that had long closed for the night. The gate was deserted and unguarded. While she did not scare easily, she knew the implications of the sight: either there was no one left to guard the waterside location, or there was no need to. Neither one appealed to her at the moment.

Warily approaching the olive-green vehicles, she found them long empty. It had taken her longer than she had expected to get to the manufacturing district on foot; the mercs that had occupied these vehicles would have had at least a half an hour head start on her. _That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but…_ The silence unnerved her. Mercs had an unfortunate habit to shoot anything that moved in front of them the wrong way, and the absence of gunfire was possibly more unsettling than the quiet itself.

"No one's here," she reported quietly, keeping her voice low in case there was something—or someone—lying in wait for her.

"Okay," came the reply. "I've got the site map of this place. Take a look."

Her phone buzzed in her pocket a few moments later; pulling out, Umi scanned the layout of the avenue ahead of her. For a business in the manufacturing district, it was small—just a few warehouses surrounded by a small office block. "If you find a computer," Eli continued in her ear, "I can probably get you onto their security network."

Umi gave her a grunt of acknowledgement as she made her way to the open gate, its lock clearly having been shot off when the mercs had forced their way through. She shook off the feeling of dread that accompanied the rusted whine of metal as she pushed open the chain-link fence just wide enough for her to slip inside. She didn't bother closing it behind her as she moved forward in a near-crouch, darting from cover to cover in case the sniper that had made the shot from the top of the building into Izayoi's car was watching the entrance.

No bullets came flying at her, though, as Umi entered the shadows cast by the low office buildings, glad to be out of the bright moonlight. Concealing herself around its corner, she peered down the avenue, scanning for movement and finding none. Her sense of unease heightened as she made her way forward.

Fifty metres down the rubble-lined pathway, she found her first casualty. A merc's body lay in one of the deep ruts left behind by travelling vehicles, a dark stain of blood colouring the ground beneath him. She checked him briefly for a pulse, but found none. He had been killed by a single shot to the head, although to her, it did not look like a shot from a sniper rifle. It was likely that his squad mates had simply left him there and moved on.

Umi tucked herself into a crevice formed by the narrow gap between two buildings. "Anything?" Eli's voice seemed unnaturally loud in her ear in comparison to the silence that wrapped around her like fog.

"No," she responded. "I found one merc killed in action, but no sign of his company or anyone else."

"Hm. The building to your left should be their reception office. See if you can get in there and get on one of their computers. I'll be able to know more then."

"Got it."

Sidling forward, Umi kept her bow in position as she peeked around the corner of the building into the glass windows. Moonlight streamed in through the glass, but she couldn't see past the dark silhouettes of furniture that lined the windowfront. The light from a computer winked at her from the very back of the reception area, and she set her sights on it as she crept up to the door to the office.

The door handle was unlocked when she turned it, and Umi had perhaps a second to respond to the automatic fire aimed at her head the moment she stepped through the threshold. Dodging forward, she tumbled behind a worn sofa. _I knew it._

The insulating material of the couch would not shield her for long as she drew her bow from a crouching position, narrowing her eyes when another spray of bullets missed her by a slim margin, some of them being absorbed by the soft cushions of the sofa. Using the sound to pinpoint the location of the shooter, she popped her head up from behind cover long enough to shoot back.

A pained shout told her that she'd hit him, but the scuffle of boots on floorboards meant that the shot hadn't been lethal. Umi let a second arrow fly before the man could reload. This time, her arrow found its mark as her assailant slumped to the ground, motionless.

She reloaded her bow as she stepped around his fallen body. It was tempting to go over to the computer now, but instinct and experience told her that sweeping the entire building first was the smarter plan, just in case there were more hostiles in the building that hadn't been drawn to them by the sound of gunfire; Umi had absolutely no intention of being snuck up upon.

The stairs that led to the upper level was at the back of the small reception area, and Umi winced slightly when the first step creaked ever so slightly under her boot. She froze, but there was no sound from the floor above. Keeping her steps as close to the edge of the stairs as possible, she lowered her body so that she was half bent as she approached the top step.

Peering over the ledge, there was no sign of movement in the narrow hallway that was flooded with moonlight from a small window at the very end. Three closed doors led off on either side of the passageway as she slowly moved towards the first one, pressing her ear against the wood for any source of sound within. When she heard nothing, she decided it was safe enough for her to open cautiously.

Not lowering her bow with her right hand, Umi slowly inched the first door open by a few inches and held her breath. Nothing rushed out at her, and no rain of bullets peppered the wooden doorway, so she let her bow lead the way as she pushed her way through the door.

The office area was deserted, the neat piles of paper that had been stacked in various cubicles fluttering gently to the floor as she strode by them, checking every one for signs of hostiles and finding none.

Closing the door to the first room, Umi made her way to the second. This time, it was locked, and she could hear the steady hum of a boiler behind it. The doorknob seemed to be jammed and she left it alone; trying to force her way through it would cost her more time than the trouble it was worth.

The third door furthest from the stairwell, was slightly ajar. As she moved up to it and pressed her back against the doorframe, she could hear the sound of the night breeze whistling past an open window inside. She pressed her hand against the wooden door to silently push it open all the way before stepping over the threshold.

Moonlight filtered in behind thin, gauze-like curtains that flapped whimsically in the breeze, their movements in stark contrast to the three bodies lying around the singular, large desk that occupied most of the room. Umi swallowed at the sight of the crimson liquid splattered on various pieces of furniture as she picked her way around the bodies—two of them were dressed in military garb, and the other was dressed in all black.

Behind the curtains, the large window was smashed, glass fragments winking innocently in the moonlight as Umi stared out the broken window. "Three bodies up here," she reported in a rough whisper into her earpiece. "Two mercs, one from whatever organization we're dealing with."

She heard the sound of inhalation from the other end. "Anything else?"

"No," she replied. "There was a computer downstairs. I'm on my way back down there now."

Umi took care to keep her footsteps silent as she retreated back down the stairs, in case someone else had snuck in while she had been inspecting the upper floor, but the reception area remained as deserted as she had found it. She quickly slid into the chair behind the computer at the desk, turning it on and winced slightly at the brightness of its screen. Sliding an OSD into its port, she picked up her bow again as she waited, not intending to let her guard drop for even a heartbeat.

"Nothing," Eli said in her ear a few minutes later. "I have shipping manifests, shift reports and a visitor list. Nothing that connects Izayoi to this place other than the fact that he owns it. If he's communicating with someone right now, he's doing it through radio."

"Would you be able to crack that?" Umi asked her as she let herself out through the glass door of the building and back out onto the avenue.

"If I had one of the transponders, yes," was the reply. There was the sound of rapid typing on the other end for a minute or two. "Okay. I've got access to their security system now. Let me see…"

Umi stuck to the shadows as she made her way forward. Movement flashed in the corner of her eye as she spun around, ducking quickly behind a pile of rubble to avoid being hit by a bullet coming from the next alleyway. Her own shot missed, clipping off a sizeable chunk of brick from the side of the next building as she reloaded, dropping down on one knee to conceal what she could of her body behind the rubble. There was a shout of triumph not too far from where she was crouched—judging by the response it got, there was more than one hostile lurking just around the corner.

Her heartbeat picked up as she darted across the exposed block and behind a k-rail just in front of the alleyway where she'd been fired at from. There was a distorted laugh from up ahead. "I know you're there," someone called out, sinking a round of bullets into the concrete surface of her cover.

Unfortunately for the man, shouting only helped her pinpoint his location as Umi poked her head out behind cover long enough to draw her bow completely, burying an arrow into his temple. In the second it took for her to reload while running, the two men that had been accompanying the first were after her.

She hissed in pain when something sharp grazed her cheek, but there was no time for her to assess the injury as she let go of the arrow already loaded into her bow, the thump behind her telling her that it had found its mark as she swerved around a parked car to use as cover.

Panting slightly, Umi listened for the sound of approach as she hastily swiped at the cut on her cheek. To her relief, though her fingers came away sticky, the cut was not deep and it had almost stopped bleeding already. By the sound of his footsteps, the third man wasn't far from her and knew exactly where she was hiding. Using the crunch of boots against gravel as an indication, she lashed out with a kick the moment he came into range, knocking the shotgun out of his hands as he reeled back.

A fist swung by the side of her head as she rolled forwards, driving the handle of her bow into his chest as he turned around for a second attempt. The force of it was enough to push him back a few inches, but his greater height and weight allowed for much quicker recovery than she had originally anticipated as a rough hand came into contact with the base of her throat.

She let out a short gasp; choking at the pressure on her neck, adrenaline forced its way through her veins as Umi kicked back, the heel of her boot finding purchase in his groin. She was free in an instant as he doubled over slightly, trying to fight against it, but the lowered height was enough for her and she grabbed his shoulder with her free hand, lifting her arm and driving the steel curve of her bow into his back. The man collapsed on his stomach, and a quick debilitating kick to his neck gave her the time to draw an arrow from the quiver on her back.

By the time the man looked up at her again, the point of her arrow was only an inch or two away from the tip of his nose. "Who do you work for?" she demanded hoarsely; her voice not yet fully recovered from earlier.

The man did not reply. Instead, he snarled at her as he made an attempt to get up and reach for the shotgun lying a few feet away.

 _I'm not going to get an answer from him._ The realization was sharp in her mind as Umi let go of the string on her bow. Breathing hard, she stared at the three bodies she'd left behind as she massaged her throat.

"Umi! Are you okay?" Eli's panicked voice broke through her haze of concentration for the first time as she straightened.

"Fine," she ground out.

"Listen, Umi. Don't go near the warehouse."

The order seemed strange, especially considering the warehouse was probably the first place she would have checked. "What?"

"I went over the surveillance footage from earlier," Eli told her tersely. "They set up a kill zone in there and lured most of the mercs inside. That's why you haven't heard or seen anyone else."

Umi resisted the temptation to curse out loud as she sucked in a ragged breath. _Damn._ "Anything else?" she asked.

"Yes. I spotted Izayoi on a few cameras. He went into the site office down the block to your right. I'm still looking through some of the footage, but I haven't seen him come out yet."

"Okay," she acknowledged. Checking the tension on her bow and restringing it quickly, Umi picked her way amongst the rubble down the avenue, sticking to the shadows on the right side as she made sure every alleyway and building entrance was empty before stepping across them, not wanting a repeat of what had just happened.

As she rounded the corner to the last building, she spotted the site office a few hundred metres to her right, half hidden by the bulk of a larger structure that resembled a loading bay. "Anyone up there?" she asked, hoping Eli would be able to give her a heads up before she stumbled across more unwanted attention.

"No one I can see, but the cameras don't work as well in the dark as they should. Stay sharp," Eli informed her.

She darted across the moonlit open ground between the two buildings, instinct scratching at her nerves not to stay out in the open for too long. Umi edged along the side of the loading bay once she'd reached it, ears straining for some sound that didn't belong in the stillness of the night and finding none.

She slipped into the darkness of the bay, thankful that its roof shielded her from the moonlight outside as she scanned the area carefully, bow at the ready. The empty, cavernous space was silent as she crept along the side of the wall until she reached the end.

An open door into the next section of the loading bay greeted her in the darkness as she made her way over to it, scowling slightly when, unexpectedly, she stepped on the crinkle of some sort of fast food wrapper. The sound of scrunching plastic seemed to echo in the huge space, and Umi held her breath in case she spotted movement on the outside, but no one came running.

Clambering up the steps and through the door, she dropped down on the other side. It was almost identical to the space that she had just left, with the exception of the military car that Izayoi had escaped in parked haphazardly in the opposite corner; she could see the smashed window and ruined paint from where she was standing.

Quickly, she made her way over to it, wincing at the sight of the broken bulletproof glass with cracks that spread like spiderwebs, dotted with blood. The glass had been made to withstand shots from a pistol or a rifle at close range, not a powerful shot from a sniper rifle hundreds of metres away. She spotted the bodies of the driver and soldiers that had escorted Izayoi piled in the backseat—it was obvious that he had taken advantage of the situation's confusion to either hijack the car or blackmail the driver into cooperating.

A flash of black cloth on top of the site office caught her eye as Umi inched past the car. There was a figure dressed in all black perched on top of the small, low building, but whether he was waiting for someone to approach the office or for someone—perhaps Izayoi—to emerge from the doorway, she couldn't tell.

She was sure, however, that he had not been there when she had entered the loading bay, because he would have been easy to spot from a distance. The fact that Eli hadn't alerted her to his presence meant that he had some knowledge, at the very least, about where the security cameras were.

The thought made her uneasy.

Inching into a standing position, she drew her bow, adjusting for wind and compensating for the difference in angle as she straightened. The point of her arrow drove into the man's neck and Umi watched him fall to his knees, halving the brief remainder of his life by pulling it out. She spared no time to grieve for him; her disgust at who he worked for did not allow her to feel pity nor regret at his death.

She hesitated for a brief moment at the metal door to the site office, listening intently for sounds within but hearing nothing apart from a soft electrical hum. She deliberated for a few more heartbeats when the doorknob didn't budge before she kicked the door in.

The small space was crammed with computers and monitors, all deserted, though there was evidence of them having been recently disturbed. The electrical hum grew louder as she approached them. She spotted few pistols lying on a desk, complete with ammunition shells lying about carelessly before she noticed a door that led into the back room.

There was no point in being discreet, given how she had entered the office, and Umi kicked open the door with her bow raised and ready to shoot before she took in the sight before her.

Izayoi Tetsu was slumped over the single desk at the very back of the small office. He was sitting in front of a laptop whose screen was still on, reflecting the small pool of blood that surrounded his head like a halo. The window behind her was smashed, glass shards littering the carpet from a small circular hole in the glass where the bullet had entered from. There was a radio next to the limp fingers of his right hand as she cautiously approached him.

She held a hand up to the earpiece in her right ear. "Eli, I found him. He's dead."

" _What_?"

Umi picked apart the scene before her, inspecting the rest of the desk's surfaces and the corners of the room before she spoke again. "I don't know. There's a laptop still here that might have some information on it, but I don't want to touch anything. You should tell Toujou-sama to send in the army so they can pick this all up." She stared at the radio in his hand, noting the way his fingers were curled around the small object and looking back at the window behind her. "But he was speaking to someone before he died—I don't think he knew they were planning to kill him."

On the other end, Eli inhaled sharply before letting it out slowly. "Right." There was the sound of a scuffle, as though she had turned around to speak to someone else and it was a few minutes before she returned. "Are you safe where you are?"

She cast a glance around at her surroundings. "I think so." At the very least, Umi was confident that she would be able to deal with any threat that could potentially walk through the doors, especially if Eli was still keeping an eye on the security cameras outside.

"Okay. Stay put then. The army's on its way."

Umi closed the door on the body of the dead man as she re-entered the main office. Somehow, Izayoi looked much smaller in death than he ever had in life, and she wondered if he had even known the true purpose of what he had thrown away his life for. She remembered what Eli had said to her the previous day over the phone.

 _"He sits up in his office all day and he makes more in an hour ordering people around than I do in a month, just like he used to do before all of this ever happened."_

 _Why?_ she asked in her head, as though his corpse on the other side of the door could give her the answers she wanted. _What could have possibly made him so desperate to throw away the lifestyle that millions of people in this city would—quite literally—given anything to have? What could be worth making an attempt to kill all of those people, only for it to end like this?_


	14. Tell Me More

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** Kataru More (カタルモア lit. _Tell Me More_ ) - Nanjou Yoshino

They go drinking. I'm not sure if that needed a disclaimer, but at least I've warned you.

* * *

 _"Once, when I was little, my father purchased a snowglobe during one of his business trips as a souvenir, and gave it to me when he returned._

 _Inside the snowglobe was a little deer, grazing in a field of delicate bellflowers._

 _When he had the time, we would turn the snowglobe over together, watching the tiny snowflakes gather at the top before inverting it quickly. However, the deer was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for it._

 _'Don't worry, Nozomi,' my father told me. 'She has a wonderful life. Even if she's trapped, she lives in a perfect world.'_

 _Whenever I look back on this memory now, I wonder—how could I have not seen that that was me all along?" —Toujou Nozomi_

* * *

Drumming her fingers on the surface of her desk, Maki waited for the phone to connect. To say that she had had a bad day was an understatement. When she'd walked through the doors of Emerg that morning, the sympathetic look on Kotori's face as she handed her her datapad was more than enough to warn about the patients she would be seeing that day.

Sure enough, the surname _Yazawa_ appeared about halfway down her list, and Maki had to resist the temptation to groan out loud. While her relationship with the boy's sister—who unfortunately held the power of medical attorney over her not-yet-of-age brother—had marginally improved since their chat in her office, the way the other woman questioned everything Maki did got on her nerves far more easily than she would've liked to admit. There was _always_ something wrong: whether it was the way the nurses had inserted the IV, or how long the dialysis took every time, or the way the other doctors spoke to her.

Maki had half a mind to ask the black-haired woman how she expected anyone to be polite to her when she didn't know the first thing about manners.

Today, the topic of their argument had been about the donor list.

 _"Like I said last time, unfortunately, once we've submitted his name to the donor waiting list, we won't hear anything back until they've found a match."_ It had taken a significant amount of self-control not to pinch the bridge of her nose as she said the words.

 _"Well, you should call them and tell them to hurry up! If my agency left me hanging for this long, I'd have fired them!"_ the other woman had snapped back.

Privately, Maki highly doubted that she was telling the truth—she was pretty sure the _singer_ worked for the _agency_ , and not the other way around. She kept her opinion to herself, though, knowing that voicing it aloud would only lead to _another_ argument that she didn't have enough hours in her day to entertain.

When Maki had opened her mouth—once again—to explain, the shorter woman had held up her hand in a defensive gesture. " _I don't want to hear whatever excuses you've already come up with. You'd just be wasting my time, and I have a meeting with my agent in thirty minutes, so you can save it."_ She'd rummaged in her purse and pulled out a bright pink, flowery business card before sliding it over at her on the surface of her desk. _"Here's my business card. If anything changes on the waiting list, I want to know about it as soon as possible!"_

She'd hoisted her purse over a shoulder, grabbed her little brother's hand, and swept out of the office without so much as a backwards glance.

The mere memory of it was enough to make Maki never want to see her ever again. _She expects a call as soon as his status on the waiting list changes? Who the hell does she think I am—a receptionist?_ She had been tempted to rip the business card in half before she tossed it into the corner of her desk drawer, determined not to call the black-haired woman personally for any reason out of pure spite if nothing else.

The phone in her hand rung twice without an answer, only adding to her foul mood as she impatiently twirled a lock of dark red hair in a finger. She had already attempted to make this particular call twice that afternoon now; she had left a voicemail message both times, and both had gone completely ignored. After the fourth ring, there was a _click_ as someone picked up.

"Hello? Maki-chan? Is that you?" The voice on the other end of the line sounded sleepy—as though she had just woken up—even though it was 1639.

"Honoka," she snapped. "Pick up your damn phone for once." Irritation coloured her syllables as she waited for a response.

"Maki-chan, there's no need to be this rude first thing in the morning."

"It's four forty-five in the afternoon," she retorted. "I've been trying to get ahold of you all day."

"Is it? Oh." There was a pause and a scuffle of what sounded like Honoka getting up and out of bed. When she spoke again, she sounded moderately more awake. "So what can I do for you today, Maki-chan?"

Kousaka Honoka was an unfortunate acquaintance of hers—and the word unfortunate went both ways. If Maki had had things her way, she would've refused to go near the happy-go-lucky orange haired woman with a ten-foot pole. Honoka worked as a lab technician in the hospital—when she could be bothered to wake up to get to her shift on time. Regrettably, she also happened to be in charge of the hospital's requisition orders, which meant that Maki had to go through her _every single time_ she needed new samples for her research. Unfortunately for her, Honoka had taking a liking to her, and Umi and Eli were convinced the reason for that particular liking was because she made a point to ignore ninety-percent of what came out of Honoka's mouth.

Maki didn't know what irritated her more—Yazawa Nico's abrasive, irascible sense of self-importance, or Honoka's ability to get on her nerves with her personality alone.

"Samples," she replied immediately, not wanting to spend more time than necessary on idle chit-chat. "I'm out again."

"Again, Maki-chan?" Honoka asked her, a false tone of exasperation in her voice. "Well… I can get some for you, but you'll have to meet me in person to discuss the ones you wanted."

She repressed an aggravated sigh. "I thought I filled out the order form _last_ time. Can't you just make a copy of that and put it through?"

"Well… I _could,_ but I think I lost them all, so… I kind of need you to fill out another one."

Maki almost snapped the pen she was holding in her other hand.

 _This day just gets better and better._

"Come on, Maki-chan, it's not that bad. Just meet me at the bar we usually go to and we'll fill it out there."

She bridged her free hand across her forehead. She had made the mistake out going out drinking with Honoka once before, since apparently, the orange-haired woman didn't conduct any kind of business _except_ at a bar. While Maki was in no way against drinking, she liked to drink _alone_. Umi wholeheartedly disapproved of alcohol in all its forms and was vehemently against bars in general—and the one time she had gone drinking with Eli, the only thing that she could think about while she'd been there was that Eli was going to end up destroying her liver sooner rather than later.

Maki was severely tempted to decline the offer before she resigned herself to the fact that her research was more important. For the sake of her reputation and her future, she could deal with Honoka for a few hours.

"Fine."

"Great! I'll see you there in… three hours!" Honoka hung up on her before she could even protest that she wouldn't be off at the hospital until 1900, which would leave her only half an hour to get to the bar in question.

 _Why do I do this to myself?_

* * *

"Maki-chan!"

Maki was greeted by the sound of her own name being called across the small, crowded bar the moment she stepped through the door, and she fought to keep the scowl off her face. She was already attracting looks because she hadn't had time to go home and change after her shift; as a result, she was carrying her lab coat over one arm, her hair was a mess, and she certainly did _not_ need Honoka announcing her first name to everyone who was in earshot.

She settled herself stiffly in the seat across from the orange-haired woman, throwing her lab coat over the back of the chair before resting her cheek against one hand, hoping that the distaste on her face was enough to tip Honoka off that she wasn't in the mood to chat tonight.

Honoka, however, was past being able to read subtle facial expressions, judging by the half-empty glass of liquor in front of her as she handed Maki a menu. She took it, giving Honoka a half-concerned, half-suspicious look over the menu as she gave it a quick glance. Pointing out the drink she wanted to a passing waiter, she impatiently rearranged her purse behind her as Honoka refilled her glass, adding a few new ice cubes into it before she spoke.

"So, Maki-chan. You kind of look like you've had a crappy day."

"You have no idea," she muttered under her breath to herself. Out loud, she said, "Honoka, I thought we were here so I could fill out some forms."

Honoka held up her hands in a gesture of mock self-defence as the waiter returned with her chosen glass of wine, setting it down on the table in front of them. "Yeesh, Maki-chan. I get it. No need to bite my head off!" She rummaged behind her in her backpack, retrieving several slightly crumpled pieces of paper and smoothing them out on the table in front of them.

Maki fished out a pen from the pocket of her lab coat as she pulled the pieces of paper towards her, chewing slightly on the end of it as she ticked off the ones she wanted.

"So Maki-chan, would you care to share what made your day so lousy?"

"Patients," she replied curtly, her attention still mostly absorbed by the forms in front of her. "What else?"

"You always complain about your patients," Honoka said dismissively. "That's not new. The expression on your face _is_ , though. Come on, Maki-chan, you can tell me all about it, right? It _has_ to be someone in particular."

Maki inhaled very slowly, filling her lungs completely as she clicked her pen back into its barrel before she let it out. "Yes," she finally snapped, goaded past what little remained of her patience as she pushed the completed forms back towards Honoka. "She kinda reminds me of you, actually. She doesn't know when to shut up and pushes her boundaries far more often than she should."

Honoka put a wounded look on her face as she took another drink from her glass, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. "Ouch, Maki-chan. I thought we were friends." She delicately plucked a piece of chicken from her platter of food and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly and swallowing before she spoke again. "Seriously, though, Maki, was she that bad?"

Letting out a sigh, Maki squeezed the stem of her wine glass and twirled it around on its rim. "Why would I lie to you, Honoka? I don't know, it's like…" She struggled for a moment to find the words she wanted to say without revealing too much information. "It's like she knows exactly what pisses me off and makes an effort to do it in front of me, then rubs it in my face that I'm a physician. But… she's not a _bad_ person, I mean, I can kinda tell she really cares about her family members; it's just the way she treats everyone _else_ that's a problem."

Honoka raised an orange eyebrow at her over the rim of her whiskey. "That's it?"

"No," she grumbled over her wine glass. "She also spends way too much time talking about how long she's worked to become an idol, what her busy schedule is like, and how dare I schedule her brother's dialysis during one of her photo shoots. Am I supposed to care?"

At that, Honoka laughed outright. "Really? Sounds to me like you actually kinda admire how hard she works and how determined she is to get what she wants. Doesn't that remind you of someone?"

" _W-What_?" she spluttered, almost upending her drink over Honoka's plate of chicken. "Listen, Honoka, stop drawing parallels when there aren't any! We are _nothing_ alike! Believe me, if one of _my_ family members was in the hospital with a serious injury I sure as hell wouldn't be concerned about what photo shoots I needed to go to."

Honoka smirked. "You're blushing."

"It's the wine."

"All the two sips you've taken?"

"Honoka—"

The other woman held up her hands again. "All right, all right, obviously we've hit a sore spot…"

Maki nearly balled her hands into fists on the tabletop before she remembered where she was. "Listen, Honoka, I didn't come here to discuss my patients! I came here to order some samples because _you_ lost all your order forms!"

Pretending to wipe the corner of her eyes with her hand and giggling profusely, Honoka picked up the sheets of paper lying on the surface of the table and stuffed them back into her backpack. Maki tightened her grip on her wineglass as she raised it by the tiniest margin—the motion drew the other woman's blue gaze to her knuckles as she opened her mouth again. "So when can I pick them up?"

Looking contemplative, Honoka scratched her neck. "Well, I suppose I can get them to you by next week…" She picked up her glass and drained the remainder of her drink as Maki picked up her purse and lab coat, leaving the rest of her wine untouched.

"They'd better be there when I call you next week then," she tossed over her shoulder as she got up to make her way over to the door, ignoring Honoka's surprised, indignant call after her.

Exiting the bar, Maki wasn't completely sure whether the heat on her cheeks was from the balmy summer evening outside or the warmth of the room inside.

She checked her watch: 2027. She still had a few hours that she could spend in her laboratory with the last of her samples before she had to get some sleep.

* * *

Eli stood outside of Toujou's door, holding her phone tightly in slender fingers. Blonde bangs clung to her forehead in messy curls, but at the moment, she was past caring about the state of her hair.

She had been utterly unprepared for the conversation that Umi had dropped on her head when the bounty hunter had arrived home early in the afternoon after being given the clear to go from the manufacturing district by the army. They had had a short discussion about the request Hoshizora Rin had made of her before Umi paused, her amber eyes troubled as she opened and closed her mouth several times soundlessly before taking a long breath.

The blue-haired woman had gestured to a chair in Maki's laboratory. " _Sit."_

She had given her friend a confused, skeptical look. _"What do I need to sit for?"_

Uncharacteristically, Umi pulled over the other chair in Maki's absence and sat down too, fiddling with the ends of her hair. _"There's something else. With Rin, I mean,"_ she had begun, twisting the fabric of her shirt in restless hands. _"She told me that someone who matched Alisa's description came into her shop a few days ago and asked for your phone number. Rin wanted to know what we wanted her to do."_ Umi had held up her hands in a halting gesture to stop the flood of words Eli was sure was more than obvious on her face that she wanted to say. _"I gave it to her."_

There had been a pause that stretched to long minutes filled with nothing but the sound of breathing as she tried to process the five words that Umi had just said to her. It had felt impossible. Her chest had suddenly been sized by an overwhelming emptiness that she had no idea how begin to work out how to fill—she wasn't sure if she wanted to.

Finally, the blue-haired woman had gotten up, her right hand twitching in a motion that Eli couldn't immediately identify. _"I… didn't want that decision to be yours alone. If this was a mistake, and something goes wrong, you can blame it on me."_ Umi brushed past her, laying a hand on her shoulder for a fraction of a heartbeat before she let herself out of the underground laboratory, leaving Eli to sit there alone with her thoughts and the emotions that the simple conversation had the ability to unearth.

Of course, her mentality had been anything but simple when her phone had vibrated in her pocket sometime during the evening. She had glanced at it briefly, realizing that she did not recognize the number displayed on the screen. Some conglomeration of apprehension and pain clawed at her interior as her heart rate elevated from zero to a hundred in the span of less than a second. Indecision and irrational anguish crowded her mind at the mere thought of opening it, before her trembling fingers made the decision her brain could not.

She tapped the message icon on her screen, despite half of herself telling her she should've just deleted it without even giving it so much as another glance in case it contained something that she was in no way prepared to handle mentally.

It had been very brief in its intent.

 _Sis. We didn't get a chance to talk properly the last time we met—for that, I'm sorry. It was unfair of me to react the way I did, and I wish it could've gone differently. If I said that four years made me a terrible person, would you believe me?_

 _I'd still like to meet you. To actually talk to you like a human being. Can you meet me tomorrow night where we met last? —A_

She had stared at the characters in the message for a very long time.

Unconsciously, her fingers were dialling another number before Eli had realized what she was doing. Somehow, she was able to process the logistics of _why_ she was calling Toujou's secretary, but unable to even begin to sort out her doubts and insecurities. Letting them rest—for the time being—in the back of her mind was the least painful, least effortful solution to take.

 _I… don't actually know how to get there. Even if I did, I don't have the means to get there by myself. In fact, I only know one person who_ can _get me there tomorrow evening._

She couldn't even let herself consider the fact that Toujou could simply say no, or otherwise deny her request because it was impossible; Eli wasn't even sure if she could muster the composure to speak to Koizumi in an acceptable way. It didn't even occur to her at the time that this would be the first time _she_ would be the one making a request for them to meet.

The brunette had picked up on the second ring. " _T-This is Tokyo's district office. Koizumi speaking. H-How can I help you?"_

Her voice had come out far more controlled than Eli had felt at the moment. " _This is Ayase Eli."_

" _Oh! A-Ayase-san! What can I do for you?"_

She paused, hesitating. Somehow, she didn't think there would be any way to put her request into words that wouldn't make her sound emotional and desperate. " _I… I need to see Toujou-sama,"_ she had said. _"Tomorrow."_

Her words sounded way too demanding in her head, but there was nothing she could do about it—there was no way she was disclosing the reasoning behind her request over the phone.

 _"T-Tomorrow? Uhm… I'll have to check with her on that. I-Is it okay if I call you back?"_

 _"Fine,"_ she heard herself say, although Eli felt strangely detached from the situation at hand at the moment as she slowly lowered her phone from her ear. Realistically, she had known that that was an outcome she should've prepared herself for, but it didn't curtail the bitter, disappointed impatience that rose in her chest like a wave. She crushed it, feeling uncomfortably alive and unsure of what to do with herself.

Koizumi had called her back within half an hour. _"Ayase-san?_ " The brown-haired woman's timid tones came over the speakers as she held her phone to her ear in a grip that was unnecessarily tight. _"Toujou-sama said if you come right at 1345 tomorrow, she'll be able to see you. I-Is that okay?"_

 _"I'll be there."_ Hanging up, she had stared at the black surface of her cellphone for an indecent amount of time. _"Damn it_ ," she muttered, cursing out loud to no one in particular, unable to express the weight of emotion sitting like a lump of greasy snow at the back of her throat in any other way.

 _Things are happening just too damn fast._

Time had indeed found a way to speed itself up—at least, it seemed that way to her—because Eli found that now that she was actually _here_ , she didn't know which prospect she was more afraid of: speaking to Toujou, or the possibility of what could happen that night.

The time on her watch read 1343.

She raised a hand to knock on the door to Toujou's office, but it was trembling so badly that she pulled it back and clenched it into a fist, knowing that that was _not_ how she wanted to present herself to the district ruler this afternoon. She couldn't hear any voices coming from behind the heavy wood, but it only served to slightly assuage her sense of trepidation.

Eli forced herself to breathe only through her nose to make her breathing seem calmer than she felt. Counting to ten mentally as if to steel herself, she raised her hand again to knock once.

There was silence for perhaps five seconds, and she wondered whether it would be appropriate for her to knock again, before there was a response. "Come in."

Prising her fingers out of the ball they were in, Eli turned the doorknob and closed the door behind her, pushing her bangs back off her forehead in an attempt to make them look more presentable.

Toujou was settled in her usual chair, but there was something… _off_ about the way her emerald gaze was fixed on her that instantly made Eli uneasy as she took a few steps forward. She fought the temptation to furrow her eyebrows.

There was silence between them for several long heartbeats, both of them staring at each other as though it was a contest to see who could unravel whose control first, before Toujou broke it, shifting ever so slightly in her seat as she rested her chin on the backs of her interlocked fingers. "Koizumi-san informed me that you wanted to see me?"

Eli noticed that she had purposely left the end of her sentence vague, as if to avoid addressing her by name on purpose. Ignoring it for the time being, she'd decided that it could only help her case if she was upfront about the reason why she was here. "I need your help."

"Oh? What kind of help are we talking about?"

She found herself staring at her boots against the plush carpet beneath them, before Eli looked up again, determined to meet Toujou's mildly curious, verdant gaze as she voiced her request. "I… I need to go to the outskirts of the city tonight."

Toujou held her gaze in a long, calculating look. Eli got the sense that the woman opposite her was thinking very hard, though only a flicker of emotion crossed her face before she spoke again. "Is this for your sister?" Her voice was soft and unchallenging, but she could hear the unspoken question behind it all the same. After all, they both knew that Toujou had been there that night and had seen everything—it was just that the topic had never been brought up between them at an appropriate time. They had come close several times, but neither of them had wanted to take that last step to breach that particular topic.

"Yes. She found another way to get ahold of me." Eli paused, not sure why or how the unnecessary explanation had slipped out when she had avoided saying the words out loud for over a day, perhaps out of irrational fear that once she acknowledged it aloud, it would somehow invalidate them akin to a heat-induced dream that had never existed. "She told me she wanted to talk." She left it at that; there was a sharp edge to every word that scraped her throat raw as they cut their way out.

Eli wondered if her emotions were as obvious to Toujou as they were to her.

The violet-haired woman was silent for a very long time. "And you need my help to get you there… correct?" she finally asked.

"Yes," she said again. She was on the verge of adding _if you're willing to_ on the end of her sentence, but she bit down on the tip of her tongue to stop the syllables from coming out. Eli looked down at her hands, knotted together tightly enough to turn her knuckles white before she glanced upwards, finding Toujou's piercing jade expression trained on her own.

Blue eyes met the green as Eli held her gaze.

"Well, I certainly would be able to get you to where you'd like to go, Eli-san. However…" She took a breath. "There's something I'd like to ask of you in return."

Eli tilted her head to one side in surprise. She reigned in her initial reaction as she disentangled her hands from themselves and resisted the temptation to cross them over her chest. "What is it?" she asked slowly, unsure of what to expect and even more wary of what Toujou could possibly want from _her_.

Toujou raised her head upwards by the smallest degree, raising her chin off her hands. "I've been meaning to ask you about something." Her words were serene, yet careful, as though they had been practiced many times over in her head—and perhaps they had. "Last week, I heard you on the phone with Sonoda-san," she admitted, although there was no trace of bashfulness in the confession as she continued. "You were discussing Izayoi—and the other citizens of this district like him, I presume. I want to know… Is that how you see us?" She folded her hands onto the surface of her desk in front of her. "Is that how you see _me_?"

Incredulous shock held Eli's body in place as both Toujou's words and her gaze intensified at her last sentence, until she could barely read the expression etched into her delicate features.

 _Of all the conversations she could've overheard… it_ had _to be that one._

Eli's immediate reaction would've been to move her hands up to her face to hide her own expression, but her limbs felt as though they had been carved out of ice—stiff, cold, and altogether unwilling to cooperate. Words and explanations seemed to cross her mind at a million miles an hour, but none of them seemed to have the capability to move out of her mouth.

Her initial instinct had been to deny it, of course—but that was the answer they both knew she was supposed to give. Even if she didn't know Toujou at all, Eli knew that that answer had no purpose in being said aloud because it couldn't have been more meaningless. _So… am I supposed to be honest then? Even if I have absolutely nothing positive to say?_

A memory surfaced to the forefront of her mind. _"There's nobody around me who actually says what's on their mind, much less lets slip how they're feeling at the moment_."

For some reason, the memory of the words gave her a marginal sort of confidence as she squared her shoulders to meet Toujou's gaze once more. "No," she said at last.

In a way, she felt like she owed the other woman the truth. Even if it would come to be a mistake to accept her initial offer, Eli couldn't deny that Toujou had given her the opportunity she had been chasing after in the last four years. Her conscience demanded that she be truthful, but the part of her mind that spoke to reason and not emotion told her just how terrible of an idea that was. It wasn't even the thought that it could very well be the wrong thing to say; there was also the fact that Eli knew all too well just how awful she was at navigating through anything that had to do with her own feelings—being upfront with how she felt was something she usually did her best to hide.

To Toujou's credit, she kept her mouth shut as Eli continued. "You're right. For all the politicians and businessmen out there, sitting in their rich corporations and making laws about a city they don't know at all... that's exactly how I feel—and the more time I spend around them, the less I feel my opinion of them is going to change. Of course, there _are_ people out there who want to do the right thing, but it doesn't take them long to become too intimidated to continue, or they change their ways because they've realized it's just easier to lie to themselves and say that this city is fine the way it is when they know that it couldn't be further from the truth."

There was a spark of something immovable and unshakable in Toujou's expression as she said the words. "I'm sorry you feel that way," she murmured softly after a long pause, finally averting her gaze to look at the wall over Eli's shoulder. "I guess… I wouldn't know what it feels like to live in a city that's governed by forces far beyond what I could control, knowing the things that you do about the people who make those decisions."

Eli clamped her hand over her mouth when she realized what the words she'd just said must've sounded like to Toujou. "No," she repeated. "I-I'm sorry… that's not what I meant." The words broke past her carefully constructed walls in her haste to rectify her statement: a truth that she would've otherwise been too embarrassed to ever say out loud. "I admire the fact that you still want to do the right thing, even after four years of being told that that's not how this city works." The volume of her voice dropped, almost catching her unaware as she stared at the floor, wanting to hide what she was sure was a flustered expression in case Toujou was looking at her. "I think… if things were different, we could've been friends," she admitted quietly.

The moment the words left her lips, Eli hesitated, gaze still fixated on the carpet, wondering if she'd made another mistake. She searched inside for the denial that she was sure she would find, but it didn't come. It dawned on her that she had spoken the truth. _At least, this is how I feel._

Silence held them both captive for several minutes as the words sunk in like a metaphorical anchor. When Eli finally looked up again, finally having wrested the features of her face under control once more, she realized with a jolt that Toujou was staring at her, wearing the familiar small half-smile on her face as she stood. "Nothing's stopping us from being friends now, you know."

The violet-haired woman held her astonished cerulean gaze for a few heartbeats longer before she reached for the phone on her desk. She picked it up and dialled a number on it, speaking briefly to the person on the other end before hanging up.

Toujou stopped next to her as she walked over to the door of her office, rearranging the braid on her left shoulder. "Someone will meet you outside tonight to take you to the outer district." She paused. "So, have you thought about it? Do you think that it's a possibility?"

It took Eli a moment to realize what Toujou was asking her. When she ultimately found her voice, she discovered that even though the answer hovering at the tip of her tongue felt strange, it also felt natural in the same haphazard way.

"Thank you," she murmured, before she turned her head to meet the expectant, inquiring green gaze, wholeheartedly not expecting the genuine warmth in it. "And… I think so."


	15. A Love Fleeting Yet Everlasting

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi (儚くも永久のカナシ lit. _A Love Fleeting Yet Everlasting_ ) - UVERworld

(Translation Note: "Kanashi" in this song's title was intentionally rendered in katakana in order for it to have a double meaning. 悲し/哀し and 愛し are all pronounced "kanashi" and translate to "sorrow" and "love" respectively. I chose to use "love" as its translation here because to me, it denotes something that is so dear that it is incredibly sad.)

* * *

 _"In the outskirts of Tokyo, on a clear night, it's possible to look up at the sky and count the stars. For some reason, the first time I saw it for myself, the sight made me feel not nostalgic, but pessimistic._

 _Humans are a funny species, are we not? We spend our entire lives thinking that we are perhaps the most important species to ever walk the face of the earth._

 _But space is boundless. Brilliant points of light scatter the horizon as far as the eye can see, as though trying to define the boundless universe. Who—or what—is to say that one day, someone, somewhere, does not look back on us as a species and wonder… why would we choose to destroy ourselves?" —Toujou Nozomi_

* * *

Nozomi took the radio set encased in the plastic evidence bag from one of her attendants. She inspected it carefully, noting the dried blood still present on the transponder's casing, before putting it back down on her table, looking up underneath her bangs at Kouchou. "So… what did we find?"

Kouchou fingered the plastic bag. "Izayoi was definitely using this to communicate that night. The tech specialists from the police department swept his entire building, and it's as Ayase Eli reported—he didn't communicate at all using his own network, or Tokyo's public one." The expression on his face darkened. "He must've been using this to orchestrate his entire escapade."

What was left unsaid between them was the fact that in the end, it hadn't mattered how much effort Izayoi had put into his escape. She remembered the conversation that the businessman had had in the car over the radio.

 _I thought that putting this much effort into making sure he escaped meant that they would've wanted to keep him alive. I was wrong._ She breathed in through her nose slowly before letting it out. She had underestimated the people she thought she'd been dealing with. If Tenjoin Ryosuke was truly desperate enough to start buying out businessmen in her district to accomplish his own goals, then it had been a poor oversight on her part.

Somehow, though, Nozomi didn't think Tenjoin had the discretion in him to hire assassins and political opponents. That simply wasn't his style; Tenjoin liked to operate in the open and he certainly wasn't afraid to flaunt his particular method of intimidation. Blatantly threatening her in her own conference room was him through and through—tiptoeing around her and trying to topple her by picking off strategic people in her district wasn't.

"Is there anything else?" she asked.

"There is, actually," Kouchou replied, removing a small, black envelope from the inside of his suit jacket. "I intercepted this from the media yesterday afternoon during your meeting because they wanted to release it to the public." He scowled a little at the thought. "It took some convincing on my part before they were willing to hand it to me."

Nozomi took the small envelope from him, opening it and shaking out its contents to find an ordinary OSD inside, along with a photograph. "What is this?"

Kouchou placed his hands behind his back. "This is footage from the evening of Izayoi's death. It appears that one of the reporters arriving by helicopter was running late, so they turned on the external filming while they were still on the way. Supposedly, they caught the sniper who shot at the car on film."

She raised an eyebrow at him delicately. "Have you watched it?"

Her security chief nodded. "I have, but the quality of the film isn't as clear as I would've liked it to be." She handed the OSD to him as he plugged it into the large screen of her conference room, and turned it on. For a moment, there were only sparks across the screen as the video clip loaded, before familiar silhouettes of dark skyscrapers began to pop up in front of her. Nozomi realized that she was looking at Izayoi's downtown office building from several blocks away.

Kouchou hit play on the video, slowing the frames down to a quarter of what they should've been at as the clip continued. The moment a flat rooftop came into view, he hit pause. He pointed at a dark figure that she would've otherwise missed crouched behind a water tank. "There."

Getting up from her chair, she made her way over to the screen in front of her to take a closer look at the paused image. Now that Kouchou had pointed it out, she could indeed make out the dark outline of what looked like a man very clearly flattened on the rooftop of the building behind a large rifle. She pressed a slender finger to where the rifle was pointing, sending millions of tiny rainbow waves to ripple across the surface of the screen. "Have we looked into the building he was shooting from?"

"Yes, Toujou-sama," Kouchou replied. "It's residential. I've looked into all the residents that live there, and it appears that most of them were home when this was filmed. While there is a possibility that he's one of the residents, I think the chances of that are rather small given that that would make it almost too easy to find him."

"Agreed," she murmured, still staring at the frozen image of the man on the rooftop.

"In any case," Kouchou told her, "I tried to get the image of him lightened and enhanced. I just got the photo back from my lab at the police department." He walked over to where she had left it on the tabletop and picked it up to hand to her. "Though it's not very clear either."

Nozomi inspected the photograph, holding it up to the artificial light coming from above them. Now that the image was less grainy, she could see that the sniper had not been wearing a helmet. He had light silver hair tied back in a long ponytail, and he was wearing what looked like a military grade visor to shield his vision from glare.

"Have we tried matching him with anyone in Tokyo's database?" she inquired.

"I have," Kouchou responded. "I ran him through the new, city-wide program for all citizens that we implemented last year. There weren't any hits above the normal two hundred. It would have had to be significantly above that for it to be considered a match. He could be from the outer districts, I suppose, but if he _was_ from the outer districts, where would he have had the money to get a rifle and visor like that?"

Nozomi bit down slightly on the bottom of her lip, thinking. The registry for all of Tokyo's citizens had been Fujiwara's idea—he had argued that every other district in the country had one, and it would only make sense for Tokyo to do the same. It had finally been implemented late last year after numerous heated debates between various political parties on the subject, and while she had originally been against it, protesting that acquiring a standard photograph of each citizen to be added to a common database was a breach of privacy, she had to admit that in their current crisis, it had finally come of actual use.

Turning around to face him, she voiced aloud the question that she was sure both of them were thinking. "What about the other districts?"

Kouchou gave her an interesting look. "I thought about that, but I don't have access to their databases." He caught her eye in a significant expression. "Do you want to risk it?"

She paused, not liking the small twinge of unease at the thought. _But… I have no choice. This has become too big for me to ignore, even if I wanted to._ She resisted the temptation to clench her gloved hand into a fist. _I've had people who protested my leadership of this district before, but never like this._

Hiding her sense of apprehension from the security chief, she looked back at him as she walked over to the window on the pretense of looking at the sunny early August weather outside, giving him a small smile. "I think you know what the answer to that question is."

* * *

Eli rubbed the bare skin of her arms as she watched her younger sister turn on the lamp in the corner. Its flickering, intermittent quality reminded her that she was no longer in Tokyo—at least, not in the sense of the city that she had been born and raised in. _I forgot. No one maintains the electricity lines out here anymore._ It was funny how her mind could focus on such a mundane fact when there were perhaps a hundred more meaningful things she could be thinking about instead.

"Sorry," Alisa apologized. "This probably isn't what you're used to." Her sister sat down on a ragged chair that had clearly seen better days, just like every other piece of furniture in the small, run-down basement apartment that had once belonged to someone who was no longer around to reclaim their home.

She leaned back against the table behind her, sitting on its edge and trying to use the motion to hide the raw edge of emotion grating against the surface of her sternum. "It doesn't matter," she replied quietly.

Silence closed around them, mostly because she felt afraid to bridge the gap between them. Eli found that she was unable to completely meet her sister's eyes, and Alisa looked as awkward as she felt. For the umpteenth time, she cursed herself for being such a coward, but having the courage to face her weak side had never been something she'd been good at.

Alisa broke the silence first, folding her arms over her chest and cocking her head to one side. "You're not scared I'm going to infect you, or something?"

The question drew a hollow chuckle to her lips, though laughing was the last thing Eli felt like doing at the moment. "No."

Her fingernails dug into her skin. If she could dig deep enough, she could tear out her guilt and hopelessness at the situation that she was currently in—a disguised, fragile miracle within circumstances that she would've given anything to be able to change, even if it had just been one thing.

"How did you find me?" The question was banal, but there was nothing else that she could talk about without feeling the gravity of her emotions pressing down on her chest.

"Oh. To be completely honest," Alisa admitted softly, "I've been watching Umi-san for years. She often passes by where I spend the day on the way to the outer fence, though… I've never worked up the guts to approach her. She usually visits one shop in particular." There was a pause. "After last time, I didn't know how else to reach you. So I went there, and hoped that whoever owned it was a good enough friend with Umi-san to be able to tell me your number." She shrugged. "It worked, I guess."

"But… didn't you need a phone to send me that text?" Eli asked.

Alisa shrugged again. "I… 'borrowed' one to send that to you. Don't worry," she tossed nonchalantly at her, catching the expression on her face, "I gave it back."

Eli shook her head slightly. "You didn't need to take that kind of risk."

Her sister stood up. "Yes, I did. That wasn't how I wanted things to end… at least not on my terms." The corner of her mouth twitched, and she looked away. "I _know_ how much effort it would've taken you to find me. I didn't mean to discount that. It wasn't fair of me to say the things that I did."

"I should've tried harder," she insisted.

Alisa jerked her head up in a swift motion. "And get yourself arrested in the process?" Her expression was so similar to the ferocity that was so often present in Umi's amber gaze whenever they discussed the topic that Eli almost took a step backwards, forgetting that she was already perched on the edge of the table.

"I—" She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn't come.

Her sister's expression softened. " _That_ would've been a risk you didn't need to take. After all, it's not like I don't know what kind of person you are. You would've kept trying until someone told you to stop and had a list of reasons to back up what they were saying—that's the only way people can ever convince you that something's not a good idea."

The ghost of a smile tugged at her lips at the observation. Her sister did really know her too well.

"So enough about me," Alisa continued. "How did _you_ find _me_? You're standing here in front of me, so I'm assuming you didn't break any city regulations in the process."

The crisp, matter-of-fact way that Alisa spoke the words made her throat close far tighter than she would've liked. The Alisa she knew had boundless enthusiasm and possessed a gentleness that was almost impossible to emulate. Eli could not associate the rigid, astringent motions of her arms and hands with the younger sister that had exuded far more grace than she ever had on the dance floor.

"No," she said a minute later, after she'd regained some semblance of control over the direction in which her thoughts were wandering. "I… made a deal with Toujou-sama. There were some things she wanted me to do, and—I mean, she offered to help me find you in exchange." Her voice clattered against the bare walls, but somehow, Eli was still cognizant of the fact that she was not allowed to discuss the subject of her meetings with Toujou.

Alisa carelessly flicked a glance outside of the dark window. "She was there, you know," she quipped. "That night."

"Yes," she affirmed. _Though I still don't know why._

"Do you know her well?" her sister suddenly asked her, tone changing into one similar to interest. "Toujou, I mean. I know you said you work for her, but… isn't it kind of odd she would come out here just for your sake?"

"I don't know," Eli said truthfully in response. "We…" The topic of their last conversation made its way into the forefront of her mind. She hadn't had the time or effort to give it considerable thought since it had happened, but the shift in atmosphere between them ever since their first 'real' conversation in the garden a few months ago was now more pronounced than ever. "I never asked her why," she murmured, unsure of whether she was really ready to have this discussion just now.

It was only half an answer, but if it was unsatisfactory, Alisa didn't show it. "So what's she like?" There was a hint of purpose behind the question now, and Eli thought she knew where the conversation was headed. "You must've spoken with her personally before, and given the fact that she decided to follow you out here, you two must be friends of some sort."

"No—" she protested immediately. "Well, not really," she amended, when Alisa gave her a skeptical look. "We're… "

 _I think we finally understand each other._ The sentence hovered on the tip of her tongue, but for some reason, Eli was reluctant to say it out loud.

"She's not what I expected," she finally offered. "I think… I was expecting the person she presents herself as on the media all the time, but… that isn't her."

She looked up to find her sister looking at her with an intrigued look on her face. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful. "Hm. So do you think she's actually serious about her new law?" Alisa gestured with her arms, spreading them in a circle around her, and Eli suddenly knew what she was asking—why she'd even asked about Toujou to begin with. "The outer districts of this city aren't going to go away, you know," she continued. "She's had four years to think about a solution—eight, if you count the time her father was in office. Is she only proposing it because she's trying to make herself look better, or is she actually serious about changing how this city works?"

For some reason, the first, most prominent thing that came to mind was not Toujou, but the young girl she had met on the streets of Tokyo by the waterfront. The memory felt fresh, as though it had been created just yesterday, before it redirected to the conversation they had had in Toujou's car.

"No," Eli said quietly. She found that she knew the next words she wanted to say with absolute certainty, though she could not for the life of her understand _how_ that certainty had come about. "She truly wants to change this city. But I think she finally understands it's not going to be as easy as she thinks it is. You know, all this time, the people around her have told her it's not going to work. To some degree, I think she must've known that her ideals weren't going to be accepted just like that—but I don't think she actually saw what it meant for herself until…"

 _Until she saw us that night,_ her brain helpfully supplied _._ She cut herself off before she could say it.

The corners of Alisa's mouth curled into a small smile. "You know, you sound like you know her far better than I would've expected anyone to know her. You can't be serious when you say you're not at least friends."

A faint streak of heat slowly climbed up her neck at the final word in the sentence.

 _"You know, nothing's stopping us from being friends now."_

"Alisa," she groaned, scrubbing a hand unconsciously over her face at the memory. "I didn't come here to discuss—" Eli couldn't finish her sentence, because her sister was laughing at her—a sound she hadn't heard for a very long time.

"I thought you would've at least gotten a _little_ better at talking about your feelings in the last four years," she told her, amusement decorating her voice. "But I see you haven't changed at all."

"But you have," Eli replied simply, not intending for the knife of sorrow to bury itself in her words and wincing internally when it did anyways.

Alisa closed her eyes for a long, drawn out heartbeat before opening them again. Periwinkle met cerulean as she met her gaze at last. "Yes." She tucked a lock of long, straw-yellow blonde hair behind her left ear, causing the small flower hairpin in her hair to twinkle against the poor illumination provided by the single light in the room. "But that… couldn't be helped."

She crossed her arms then, folding them across her chest and the rough grey cloak she was wearing over her clothes as she strode over to the small window that looked out across the endless rubble just beyond the thin stone walls. "It's impossible to live here and not change."

"What happened?" The soft question fought its way past her lips before she could wrestle them under control; she wondered if the slight waver in the syllables was as obvious to Alisa as it was to her. There was a part of her that had to know and a part of her that wanted her to put her hands over her ears because she didn't think she could bear to hear the answer from Alisa herself.

"I don't… really remember," her sister finally said. "It's sort of hazy. I remember them taking my blood, and someone said that they wouldn't be taking me to a hospital. I remembered wondering why. I didn't really know what had happened to me until they dropped me off at the clinic over in the 39th district. What else is there to say?" she asked. "I've been here ever since."

"I'm sorry," Eli automatically apologized. The offering of remorse was mechanical, but its delivery felt cursory to her at best: she didn't think there was a way to fully express the sense of regret pressing against her shoulders and chest like it might've weighed the world.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Alisa stated simply, a hint of her old optimism creeping into her tone as she continued. "There was nothing you could've done. You and I both know how this city operates—Edenra victims aren't considered citizens, as far as the district is aware. Unless you're somewhere up high on the political ladder, there was no way for you to know something like this. If anything, I should be the one who's saying sorry. The way I reacted that night wasn't okay—I shouldn't have taken out my anger at the system on you."

Alisa turned away from the window then, but she hovered by the wall, hesitancy present every motion. The gentleness in her next words was almost unbearable. "I would've understood, you know, if you were too angry at me to show up tonight."

"That was never going to happen," Eli argued back, finding some tangible control over her voice at last. _How could I have been angry?_ "So long as _you_ still wanted to see _me_."

A genuine smile tugged at the corners of her sister's lips and Eli had perhaps a moment of warning before Alisa caught her in an awkward hug, burying her face against her collarbone. Her initial reaction should've been to flinch, but that instinct was buried far beneath the swell of emotions that cumulated at the back of her throat as she raised her own arms, completing the embace. It felt raw again, but not in the same way that it had done for months previously. This was a pain she would've taken gladly over the months—years—of agony that had preceded it.

"I'm really, really glad you came to see me, Sis." Alisa's muted voice was constricted by a sniffle, the syllables nasally as she spoke through it. "For the longest time, the thing that scared me the most was that you'd be too afraid to even come near me ever again."

"Why would you think that?" Eli asked her gently, fighting back her own tears. She couldn't think of something that could be further than the truth.

Alisa took a half-step back, swiping at her cheek with a free hand. "Was it silly of me to assume?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice with any amount of words at the moment. "I still remember when you were afraid to ride a bicycle on your own," she said. "What happened to that little girl?"

Her sister laughed, the sound a bright peal of bells as she leaned back in. "I don't know. Things, I guess. This isn't what any of us would've wanted, but right now, I think that this is the first time I can kind of accept what's happened."

"Really?" Sorrow clenched at her heart like a fist.

Alisa nodded against her shoulder. "Like I said in my text, for the longest time, I didn't know who I was supposed to be angry at. On some days it was how this city was run, and on others it was you. In a way, I became the terrible kind of person we've always hated, because between you, Umi-san, and Maki-san, the most important thing the three of you have taught me was that no matter what, we still have to keep living. But all I could think about was how unfair everything was, and over time, that turned into resentment." There was a pause as Alisa breathed in, letting out a long sigh. "I guess the other half of it was that living out here is so different from what my old life looked like that I couldn't help but feel bitter about the way things could've been."

Eli placed her hands on her sister's shoulders and pushed back far enough so that she could see her face. "But, are you sure you're safe out here? Be honest with me."

A breathy, rueful snort broke past Alisa's lips as she shook her head slightly. "It's not like you could bring me back into Tokyo even if it was possible. Besides, I've spent long enough being taken care of by other people—I had to do things for myself eventually." She shook her head again, more forcefully this time. "No, I've found people who I can call my friends, and who I know I can rely on. I know I can trust them. We… made a pact to live every day as it comes. We don't discuss the future or the what-ifs. Life out here might be terrible, but there are ways to make it less so."

Despite everything that had led them up to this point and despite the turmoil of emotions that still rocked just underneath the surface, Eli found that there was a faint smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. The little girl who had been afraid to make friends at school, who had once given Umi a can of beans as a drink because she hadn't known better, was gone. If she had had any doubts about that fact before, then they were absolutely gone now. The thought made her nostalgic, but it hurt in a way she couldn't express. The feeling was only compounded by the fact that she knew their time was limited. It had remained unsaid between them the entire time, but it had always been there, prowling at the back of her mind like an unwanted ghoul.

Alisa finally took a step back, clasping her hands behind her back. "So yes, I've changed. Not all of it might be for the better, but I've had to make do with what I've got. I just hope that one day, this city can change too. Maybe with a little help from Toujou-sama." She readjusted the cloak around her shoulders. "You'll come see me again, right?"

"Of course," Eli answered. She opened her mouth to say something else before she was interrupted by a sound like thunder; a shudder gripped the floor as the ceiling shook, dislodging motes of dust that rained down on them like ash.

Coughing, straining to see in the inadequate light, rough fingers gripped her hand as Alisa threw open the door, pulling her along with her.

Smoke plumed into the night sky as the two of them ducked into the streets. Covering her nose and mouth with her arm, Eli squinted into the darkness, making out nothing but rubble and half-ruined buildings for the first few seconds until she spotted the flames burning viciously in the not-so-far-off distance. "What—"

She half-turned when Alisa shoved her in the direction of the city. "Sis, go," her sister hissed.

Eli began to protest before a coughing fit seized her lungs.

Alisa's fingers wrapped around her upper arms more forcefully, the urgency in her voice evident even through the low raspy croak that was all the smoke allowed. "No! That's an explosion. No one in the outer districts would have the resources to make a bomb, so it would've had to been someone from the city. The people around here don't recognize you!"

The implication clicked into place, a few seconds too slow as Eli realized what she was trying to say. "But—"

"Go," Alisa insisted again, cutting her off. "I'll be fine, I promise. I'll send you another text next time."

She had no choice. The rational part of her brain knew that her sister was right—the citizens of the outer district didn't know who she was, and the logical conclusion would be to assume that she had been the one to set off the explosive, being the only stranger in their midst. Even the trench knife stuffed in her boot wouldn't be enough to deter the angry mob that the explosion was sure to have enraged.

Stumbling in the darkness, Eli climbed the hillside slowly, stopping every couple of meters to cough into her arm as the rising smoke tailed her up the path. When she reached the top of the sharp incline where the district car was waiting for her, she looked back.

The flames were evident even from where she was standing, a bright molten sea of fire spreading from not far where Alisa lived. She shuddered, even though the early August night was anything but cold. _It could've…_ She dismissed the thought before it could progress, not needing the possibilities that it entailed in her head.

 _Who would do this?_ Eli found that the answer came to her easily enough, as she climbed in through the door of the car that was held open for her by the attendant. She had no doubt that whoever had ordered the bombing was part of the large opposition to Toujou's new policy, and had finally gotten fed up enough to act upon it.

Something akin to horrified panic crept along her skin as she thought about it. _Even if you hated them… is this really necessary?_ It would've been easy for her to lie to herself that it wasn't something she needed to be worried about, and it would've been even easier had she not just met her sister who lived not a kilometer from where the bomb had been set off, but Eli knew that there was no way she could think like that anymore. Perhaps Alisa had been right—that Toujou was rubbing off on her a little now that they knew each other better—but deep inside, the true nature of her feelings lurked, like a tiny bird taking flight for the first time.

 _Sooner or later, we're going to have to deal with this, whether we like it or not._


	16. (To be) Weightless

_"I was raised to believe in a God. I remember the faith my parents had and how they had raised me to share that faith. I did, once. I believed in something larger than us, some benevolent force behind the universe, guiding it forward. But after what happened to Tokyo in October 2022, it seemed like a joke. How could a loving god allow something so horrific to happen to the millions of innocent victims that Edenra claimed? And if that hadn't shattered my faith, then Bloody Valentine certainly would have._

 _Even now, I wonder—will I ever find something that will allow me to believe in something greater than myself again?" —Ayase Eli_

* * *

Umi shielded her face with a hand as she trudged on the familiar path back into Tokyo. It was barely 1000, but the sun was already peeking over the tops of half-fallen buildings, promising another scorching August morning even though it had rained the previous night.

Normally, her hunting trips would have taken her past noon, but almost tangible tension had hovered in the air as she'd made her way through the outer districts that morning. It had unnerved her slightly even though she did not scare easily.

It had also given Umi the feeling that she needed to get out of there as fast as possible—there was _something_ about the way the few citizens that had been out had looked at her that made her skin crawl with the sensation of suspicious malice, and she was never one to dismiss gut instinct.

 _Something has happened. I just don't know what it is._

Approaching the waterfront of Tokyo Bay, she spotted a large gathering of people just in front of the makeshift bridge, and the sight was enough to distract her from her thoughts.

Several military vehicles were parked in the already narrow lane— she could pick out the garbs of a few bounty hunters amidst the sea of camouflage green. She frowned a little: a large group of bounty hunters and private military corporations in the same place usually spelled trouble, and it was rarely in a good way.

As she drew closer, Umi realized that they seemed to be arguing with a much larger crowd of citizens from the outer district.

Unease lingered in the atmosphere around her, igniting the rubble and derelict buildings around her like kindling. _What… is going on?_ She had a nasty feeling she was about to find out, and she knew from intuition alone that she was _not_ going to like what she found.

Nearing the mob, she began to make out the words that the mercs were shouting. "You guys killed him!" There was more than one weapon raised, in more than one hand, and that fact was tantamount to the strangeness of the situation alone because none of the Edenra victims that the weapons were pointed at were backing away from them.

Umi edged through the crowd of people as one of the victims shouted back. "He bombed our district! I saw him there last night! It was him. Do you know how many people it killed?"

She froze.

 _Is that… what happened?_ She knew that Eli had gone to see her sister last night, but she hadn't seen her blonde friend return that morning. Realistically, Umi knew that she would've already known about it if something had happened, but that didn't do much to diminish the gravity of the situation at hand.

It made her sick to think about it.

 _Who… Was it really one of the bounty hunters that did this?_ She knew from bitter experience that most mercs and bounty hunters despised the victims of Edenra for Bloody Valentine, even though the majority of them had had nothing to do with that fateful day. That fact did not matter to most of the people who worked for military companies or as bounty hunters, but she had never imagined that their hatred would escalate into… _Into something like this._

She had finally made it to the front of the crowd. Peering under a merc's arm, she stifled a gasp, covering her mouth with a hand.

The body of a bounty hunter she did not know lay sprawled on the dusty ground before her, blood mixing with the dirt and dust that refused to ever be washed clean from the outskirts, no matter how much rain tempered the district. His broken rifle was on the ground beside him, twisted at an awkward angle and utterly useless.

She stood still for a few moments.

There was no wasted grief over the man as she raked her eyes over his body, picking out the spots where he had been impaled by bits of glass and dull knives. She had no idea where the Edenra victims had gotten those weapons, but she was not surprised at all by the fact that they did.

"Where's your proof that he did it?" one of the mercs called back at the angry crowd gathered on the opposite side of the ring of spectators, as though odd guests at an ill-attended funeral.

"I saw him!" one of the men repeated. It was echoed by a chorus of other voices as they raised their fists along with their voices.

One of the bounty hunters beside her drew his spear and leveled it at the citizens opposite them in one swift, violent motion. "Who cares, anyways?" he called back derisively, sarcastic distaste evident in every syllable. "It's not like the people who died mattered. What have they ever done for this city? No one even knew their names!"

Before the argument could escalate further, the sound of sirens permeated the still, humid August air. Umi whipped around, spotting the bright white police vehicles rapidly approaching them, throwing up dull brown dust in their wake.

The crowd scattered almost immediately, the citizens of the outer district disappearing down alleyways or scrambling back into homes within the collapsing buildings. Slowly, the rest of the remaining mercenaries and bounty hunters turned to leave as policemen approached the body of the bounty hunter in the middle of the avenue, stopping briefly to speak to a select few.

Umi turned to go. There was nothing for her to stay for, and the sight of the dead man made her feel ill at ease, and it wasn't because of the way he died. She had seen the rage on the faces of the Edenra victims, and she knew that they would not have approached a bounty hunter for no reason, unless they were sure he had been the one to commit the crime. _If he really did set off a bomb here last night, then he deserved to die. Perhaps not like this,_ she amended to herself _, but he needed to be brought to justice._

Someone shoved her roughly from behind. "Did you enjoy the show, Sonoda?"

She bit back a scowl as she half-turned to see that Satou Fubuki had caught up with her in a few easy strides. She simply gave him a cold, disdainful look—she had not forgotten their last conversation at the warehouse district. "Can I help you?" she asked icily, cognizant of the fact that there were still police officers in the vicinity, otherwise, she would have drawn her bow at his obnoxiously close presence to intimidate him into backing off to a respectable distance.

Satou seemed aware of that particular fact as well, because his stance was slightly less aggressive that it normally would have been towards her. "You know," he drawled, "I would've thought that _you_ , out of all people, would've thought that guy did you a favour." He jerked a finger back in the direction of the dead bounty hunter.

"What are you talking about?" she snapped.

He lowered his voice, not for the sake of her privacy, but for the sake of dramatic effect. "Y'know, since the Ceresis killed your family and all. I would've thought _you'd_ be the first one to want revenge."

" _You_ —" Umi stopped herself before she lost her temper. Breathing heavily through her nose once, she let it out before she opened her mouth again; letting Satou Fubuki _see_ her lose her temper was the last thing she needed this morning. "I would never do something like _that_ for revenge," she ground out through gritted teeth at last.

Catching her momentary slip of composure, he laughed openly at her reaction. "You'd like to think so, wouldn't you, Sonoda? Let me tell you this. You might think you're better than the rest of us, but really, you're just a scared little girl who isn't willing to do what she should be doing to avenge her family." The tone of his voice intensified as he continued. "If you _really_ wanted to avenge them, you'd be taking notes."

He sniggered again, giving her an exaggerated wink before stalking away, fingering the hilt of the large sword strapped to his back as he did so, leaving Umi there to fume silently long after he had departed.

She had heard enough from Satou over the years that she had had more than sufficient practice in ignoring the content of his taunts and jibes obviously designed especially to get under her skin, but disgust roiled just underneath the surface of her skin like a moldering pile of rot. _How dare he…_

 _He knows absolutely_ nothing _,_ she reminded herself, repeating the statement in her head like a mantra.

There had been a time after her parents' deaths that she might have been caught and trapped in an all-time low of a mental state that she would have briefly considered carrying out such an act, but that was before she had met Kotori.

Kotori had changed her—had allowed her to appreciate the things she still had to live for and convinced her to let go of the things that should be left in the past. There had never been one moment where Umi had doubted the brunette's intentions and she knew without a doubt that entertaining thoughts like the ones Satou wanted to put in her head would disappoint Kotori more than anything if nothing else.

 _No_. _I'm not that kind of person. I know better than that._

She clung to the final thought as she climbed the rocky incline on the other side of the bay, checking her phone as she did so: there were a few messages on it that she hadn't read. One was from Eli, letting her know that she wouldn't be back until at least tomorrow, and the other was from Kotori.

Umi nearly smacked the palm of her hand into her forehead when she read her fiancée's message—a reminder that they had set aside some time to go over wedding plans together the next morning, something that in the light of the last few days, she had completely forgotten about.

While it would certainly be a welcome distraction, she was suddenly plagued with the memory of their _last_ wedding planning session. She closed her eyes as visions of crinolines, corsets, and tulle flashed before her, each more shameless than the last.

 _This could end very, very badly._

* * *

Eli closed the lid of her laptop, burying the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. She took a deep, steadying breath, but it felt cursory at best, because it seemed like the stuffy air of the district building in August did almost nothing for the oxygen requirements of her lungs.

The tips of her fingers brushed the report she'd just printed out. More so than anything, it was its content that was the root of her headache. A lot of headaches had beaten their way through her skull over the years, but this one felt alive, its greasy pressure insistent.

Toujou had called her on the morning after her visit with Alisa in the outer districts, waking her up in the middle of her impromptu nap in Maki's laboratory. She had startled awake, unsure of where the sound that had broken into her sleep was for a few heartbeats was coming from before finally recognizing it as her own ringtone. Spying the number on the illuminated display, she picked it up, fully expecting Koizumi's timid tones and being surprised again when it wasn't.

Still blinking away sleep, she had listened to the request from the other end. She did not miss the less-than-composed tone of Toujou's voice—and given what she had very nearly witnessed the previous night, Eli did not blame her.

 _"I'll tell you more when you arrive,"_ Toujou had assured her over the phone.

She shook her head slightly as she picked up the small stack of paper. There had been genuine distress haunting the edges of Toujou's voice and Eli wondered if, for the first time, she felt like she was finally losing control over her district. The violet-haired woman had always carried herself with an air of charismatic confidence, even in televised meetings, and Eli had never seen her composure slip in public, even slightly. _But there's only so much you can keep bottled up. One of these days, something's going to happen and all that control is just going to disintegrate. I'm hardly one to talk, but I would know._

She had taken the OSD and the photograph from Kouchou, the man that had debriefed her the very first night that she had met the district leader, and had given them a quick glance over as she listened to what he wanted her to do. It sounded a little desperate—even to her—but Eli knew enough about the current state of affairs that at this point, there was little choice in the matter. If ruling the district had been up to her, she would not have seen another solution to the current problem that had only been compounded by the bomb that had been set off in the outskirts. The police report on its aftermath had yet to come in, but she didn't need to look at the results to know that nothing positive would come of it.

Toujou had swept off for an emergency meeting with her senate regarding the explosion, which left Eli to her own devices for the next few hours. It had taken her almost two to crack the encryptions on the other districts' citizen databases, but at least she had something to show for it.

However, she was reluctant to make her way over to Toujou's conference room just yet, as she didn't know if the meeting was supposed to be over already. Eli had absolutely no intention to run into Fujiwara Hayato in particular, even just in passing.

Papers in hand, she went to drop off her personal laptop in the room that Toujou provided for her in the district building. Regrettably, she'd used it more often than she would've liked, but at least it was secure. Tapping her ID card on the doorframe, she made sure to lock the computer in the safe she'd stashed in the closet before meandering her way back to the conference room, taking her time.

She didn't spot any politicians in the hallway leading up to the conference room, but she made an effort to drag her feet, just in case.

The door to the conference room was ajar.

No voices drifted out of it—something she would've expected had it still been stuffed full of politicians she had no desire to interact with. The papers in her right hand made a small crinkling sound; she was holding them tighter than she needed to.

Though the gap between the door and the doorframe, she spotted the dark silhouettes of Toujou's usual pair of security guards. There would've been more if there were senators present in the room, so Eli made the tentative conclusion that the meeting had already concluded, and walked up to the door.

She knocked once, the sound reverberating in the empty space and making it seem much more forceful than it really was.

There was no reply.

 _But… she has to be in there, right?_ Doubt crowded at the edge of her consciousness for barely a moment before she squashed it. Eli raised her hand to knock again.

"I know you're there, Eli-san," came the reply, sounding more tired than she had ever remembered Toujou sounding. "Come in." There was effort in the cheerfulness to her tone.

Pushing the heavy wooden door open wider to let herself in, Eli spotted Toujou sitting alone at the head of the table. Her hair was still in its single braid, but her bangs were messy, as though she'd pushed her fingers through it many times during the span of two and a half hours, and her hat was nowhere to be seen.

Toujou motioned to the chair on her left closest to her, a clear invitation for her to sit. She pushed her fingers up her forehead again, brushing her bangs upwards carelessly before she spoke. "What did you find?"

Eli sat on the very edge of the seat, placing the stack of paper between them so that it was within her reach. "He's not a direct match to anyone in any of the districts," she said. "But there were a couple of people with a higher number of hits than I would've expected if they were completely unrelated, so I looked into them." She pushed the papers towards Toujou.

The other woman picked them up delicately in a gloved hand, looking them over. Eli watched the expression in her green eyes change from interested to intense as she read through the pages.

There was a long pause as Toujou read.

Eli didn't know what to do with her hands, given the fact that she already knew what was printed on the pieces of paper. The atmosphere between them might've changed, and while it was nowhere near the frosty silence of something caught in between hesitant respect and awkward curiosity, she wouldn't have called it _friendly_ by any means.

"This Imori Shinn," Toujou said at last. "I'll have Kouchou look into him."

She nodded wordlessly, unsure of whether or not she was supposed to acknowledge the statement aloud.

Imori was a last name that was familiar—to her, at least. He owned one of Tokyo's largest private military corporations and was one of the biggest sponsors of the endeavours beyond the fenceline, but he had recently relocated to Osaka, which was probably why his profile had shown up in their database instead. He pushed aggressively for new weapons almost every year, and Eli vaguely remembered Umi telling her that he had struck some sort of deal with the senior Hoshizora within the last two years, having heard the news somewhere down the grapevine from Rin.

She had never met the man in person, however, and Eli had no idea if the man in the photograph truly resembled the corporate owner or not, especially given the fact that he had left the district—though he'd left his company in place—before the new regulations regarding citizen registry had come into place last November.

Eli looked up to find that Toujou had put down the pieces of paper, folding her hands over them.

"Thank you," the purple-haired woman said to her quietly. She couldn't tell if it was exhaustion or something else much deeper that weighed the violet-haired woman's voice down like rocks.

She shook her head. "I just did what you asked me to do," she mumbled awkwardly, still unused to the new, altered dynamic between them.

She turned to get up to leave.

"How did last night go?"

Eli paused, the question catching her completely off guard. Turning her head to look around sharply, she saw that Toujou was wearing the small, familiar smile on her face as she watched her. "That's something a friend would be concerned about, yes?"

She bit her lip, but there was a small smile that fought against the action as gingerly, Eli sat down again. She looked down at her lap for a moment before looking up again; her heartbeat had picked up slightly into an erratic pattern and she hoped it wasn't showing on her face. "Okay, I think," she said, hesitating a little.

"You found her?" Evidently, Toujou knew who she had gone looking for, though it wouldn't have been hard to guess.

"Yes. It was… a little awkward at first," Eli admitted, unsure of why the answer came out so easily when she had been so reluctant to broach the topic with Umi and Maki before. None of them were good at talking about their feelings, but at least Umi and Maki had their respective professions to channel their anger into.

Somehow, the clinical part of her brain knew it was because she knew how they'd respond. Toujou was different, but Eli had yet to figure out if it was a good or bad sort of different.

"But?" Toujou prompted her.

 _Is it just me, or is she too familiar with my facial expressions and mannerisms?_ She wasn't sure if the thought made her uncomfortable, or not.

"But we talked," she elaborated. "There were a lot of things that were left unsaid the last time we met. I… don't know how things will work out in the future, but at least there _will_ be a next time."

The purple-haired woman shifted her hands so that her chin was resting on the back of a wrist, the fingers of one hand holding the other. "I'm glad you went back to work things out." There was a hint of real warmth to her voice, though it was smoldered by the tiredness that Eli detected in it. There was something else, but she didn't know Toujou well enough to pick out what it was. _Regret?_

"Me too." She paused. There was an unseen, but very much tangible, weight in the room that Toujou was carrying on her shoulders. It didn't seem right to leave that unaddressed. At the back of her mind, Eli knew that had it been _anyone_ else, she would've asked about it already. If it had been Umi or Maki, it would've been done before she'd even sat down.

"How did your meeting go?" The question felt strange on her tongue, but she quashed the awkward embarrassment that threatened to go along with it.

Toujou looked up at her. "What?"

"Your meeting," she repeated. "Isn't… the important part about being friends is that it's a two-way street?"

A smile tugged at the corners of the violet-haired woman's lips. "I… suppose so." She sat back slightly in her chair and took a steadying breath, but it was several moments before she continued. "You didn't happen to see the bomb last night, did you?"

"No," Eli answered. "I was there when it happened, but I didn't see it."

Toujou was silent for a few minutes. "You understand why they did it, don't you?"

She felt the fingers of her hands tighten ever so slightly in her lap, turning her knuckles white. "It's because they oppose your new law, isn't it?"

"That's correct. Though… I never imagined that they would resort to these measures in order to show their opposition."

 _No. Neither did I._

Silence wrapped around them, but it was brief. "Because of what happened last night, the senators are convinced that passing this new law is only going to make things worse. In all the months that we've been debating this, none of them have ever mentioned the welfare of the citizens that live in the outer district to me. Not even once." She paused. "Isn't it funny that now something's happened, they're using the fact against me?"

Eli did not miss the sarcastic undertones in her otherwise soft, subdued voice. There was a drawn smile on the other woman's face, but she knew it wasn't because of _what_ they were talking about, but about the irony in the words she was saying. "That's how they are though, isn't it?" she asked. "Nothing's ever the truth unless it somehow benefits them."

A few months ago, she would've kept that observation to herself, not knowing how Toujou would react to it; it was a testament to the fact how things between them had changed enough that she felt that the woman beside her wouldn't be offended, at the very least, by the opinion.

"You're right, of course," Toujou acknowledged serenely. "But knowing how things are doesn't make my problem go away. Would it be better if I stopped trying to persuade them?"

Even just a few weeks ago, Eli would've been reluctant to answer the question and all its implications out of trepidation. It surprised her that she was willing to answer it now. She didn't know enough about politics to give Toujou a complete answer to her question, but she suspected that that was not what the violet-haired woman was asking.

"No," she said quietly. "You shouldn't do something because other people say you shouldn't. If you think it's the right thing to do, then you should do it."

 _Don't make the same mistakes I have._

"And what about you?" Toujou asked her gently. "You have a right to voice your opinion too, you know. In fact, it could even be argued that you have more of a right to say something than most of the senators here. Do _you_ think it's the right thing to do?"

Eli hesitated.

Years of experience fought a war with her most recent memories. She couldn't deny that there _was_ a reason that Edenra victims remained marginalized in Tokyo's population. Most of them had been angry at the way the district treated them for none other than their diagnosis alone, and in turn had turned around to treat anyone who belonged to the district in the same way. She would never claim that the citizens of Tokyo were innocent, but she could understand their fear—their pain—at the prospect of a third disaster that could cost them everything they knew once more.

"I don't know," she answered truthfully. "I understand why the people in this city are afraid of the Ceresis. They don't want another Bloody Valentine. That's why people are afraid, because none of us do. But…"

 _But not all the Edenra victims are like that. Sure, most of them are—that's why ordinary citizens don't go into the outer districts unless it's absolutely necessary, but…_

"We've lived like this for years," she finally murmured. "Nothing's changed. And nothing _will_ change, because we're not _doing_ anything to change it. So… because of that, I think it's worth trying, at the very least. Even if it doesn't work, it won't be because we haven't tried."

Toujou gave her a dry smile. "And if it doesn't work, you do realize that that would mean it's my fault for having suggested it to begin with."

"Everyone is responsible for their choices," she said simply. "There isn't a decision out there that doesn't have a risk attached to it, but whether we choose to make them or not, even with that knowledge, is up to ourselves— _alone_ —to decide."

The smile on Toujou's face grew, morphing into something more genuine even through the somnolent lines etched into her delicate features.

"Thank you, Eli."

It wasn't until long after she'd left the room that Eli realized Toujou had dropped the honorific at the end of her name.


	17. Those Halcyon Days I Can't Return To

**Notes:** I'll give fair warning here that the violence warning is up on this fic for a reason.

* * *

 _"After I was sworn in as a physician, there was one night where Umi took me aside to talk. It annoyed me at first, because when she wasn't busy killing things, Umi was always obsessed with some sort of philosophical crap. Personally, I couldn't care less about whether we're all trapped in a state of existential limbo or not—what matters is what we do here and now. If she really wanted to discuss that kind of stuff, she could always bother Kotori or Eli._

 _Anyways… where was I? Right, taking me aside for a chat._

 _At first, I didn't understand why she was giving me a gun. 'I don't need this,' I told her._

 _'Yes you do,' she argued back. 'You are going to be a prominent figure in medicine going forth. You realize that, do you not? Whether or not you succeeded in becoming a doctor, it will not be easy for people to forget who your father was. You don't know what will happen, so you need to be able to defend yourself.'_

 _I couldn't argue with that logic, so I took it. Carelessly, I carried it around with me because I knew she'd bug the hell out of me if I didn't. Even though she insisted on giving me lessons on how to handle it, privately, I doubted that I'd ever find myself in a situation where I'd need it._

 _I don't think I've ever been gladder to be wrong in my entire life." —Nishikino Maki_

* * *

The moment Umi walked in through the front door of Kotori's apartment the next morning, she knew her tulle nightmares were coming true.

Fashion magazines were spread over almost every available table surface and lengths of various fabrics littered the living room like hammocks. "Ko…tori?" she called out, stowing away her keys in her pocket, feeling more than a little unnerved by the sight before her and unsure if she wanted to know where her fiancée was.

"Umi-chan!" came the muffled, enthusiastic call as Kotori's head popped up from behind the couch.

Slowly, Umi let herself into the apartment and closed the door behind her. "What… is all this?" She had mentally prepared herself for a moderate amount of wedding-related paraphernalia, but the collection of magazines and fabric her fiancée had managed to fit into her apartment scared her slightly more than she would have liked to admit.

The brunette put on a thoughtful face—for the life of her, Umi could not tell whether it was genuine or not. "Let's see," she said, putting a finger to her chin and looking upwards in a contemplative gesture. "I'm almost done making the dress, but we have the venue to decide on, a guest list to agree on, and food to order."

Umi pressed her lips together in a bleak smile. "What do you want to do first?" she asked, resigned already to the fact that she was never going to win over Kotori or her mother in her attempts to convince them to let the two of them elope.

"Well, we'd pay less for the venue if we book it early," Kotori answered her brightly, straightening and holding out a hand to lead her over to the dining room table. Umi took it, following her with a nod that she tried not to make out as blank, but had the nasty feeling that her lack of enthusiasm was communicated nonetheless.

The sheer number of magazines that greeted her on the tabletop made her almost want to reconsider her decision as she moved aside a stack of them to sit down on a chair. She picked one up to give it a cursory flip-through. "Which ones did we narrow them down to last time?"

Kotori looked thoughtful as she retrieved a pad of paper from the kitchen countertop, pulling out a pen from a pocket in her dress. "These three, I think." She circled three names in red ink and ripped the piece of paper out from the pad to hand to her. Picking it up, Umi noticed the prices of each venue in her handwriting beside each of the names. "Have you thought about it since last time?" her fiancée asked her.

"To be honest, no," she admitted. "I'm sorry, Kotori—there's been a lot going on."

The brunette gently placed the fingers of one hand over hers and gave them a squeeze. "I know. It's okay, Umi-chan."

"I'm open to whatever you think is the best choice," Umi offered weakly. It was an answer she would have preferred not to give, especially knowing how much a— _their_ —wedding would mean to Kotori, but it felt like the only thing she could say that wouldn't belie how she actually felt about the _process_ of getting married.

If Kotori was hurt by it though, no sign of it showed on her face. "Well, my mother really likes this one," she said, pointing to the last name on the list of three. "Would you have an objection to that?"

Umi took a closer look at the name. She did not need to look it up to remind herself which one it was, as the venue was a garden that she passed often on the way out of the city. It came as a slight surprise to her that Kotori wanted to choose the shrine that had been built in Tokyo to commemorate the victims of October 2022, but she sensed that there was a different purpose behind it—one she knew all too well.

"No," she replied, finding and holding Kotori's warm golden gaze, realizing and understanding the hint of sadness present in her otherwise gentle expression. "I think it's fitting." In her own way, Umi knew that Kotori too, wanted to remember the people who should have been there with them.

The brunette blinked once, and the brief moment of sorrow was gone. "Okay." She pulled a sheaf of paper out from underneath a stack of magazines. "But Umi-chan, _please_ tell me you at least thought about the guest list," she said, her tone more cheerful as she quickly scanned it once.

"I did. There's two people that I'm planning to invite."

Kotori gave her a pleading look. "Umi-chan…" she said imploringly.

"I'm serious," she replied.

Shaking her head a little, Kotori put the small pile of paper back down on the tabletop and scribbled something on it. " _Just_ Eli-chan and Maki-chan? You're not even going to give them the option of bringing someone else? We can squeeze them into the seating plan, you know."

"What?" Umi almost laughed out loud, despite the solemnity of the room just minutes earlier. "Trust me, Kotori, they don't have anyone else to bring either."

The brunette frowned slightly. "Umi-chan, you don't know that for sure." She wrote something else down in a different colour. "Well… I'm still going to leave the option open for them. You'll tell them that they're free to bring someone else, won't you?" Kotori turned another beseeching look upwards at her.

 _How am I supposed to say no to that?_

"I'll tell them," she sighed. _Just… don't be surprised if they show up by themselves._ She kept the final thought to herself, though, as she watched her fiancée compare _her_ guest list—which included coworkers, old contacts in the fashion industry, and former classmates—with the seating plan.

"I think we'll be able to fit everyone in the garden if we sit like this," Kotori said happily.

Suddenly, she jumped up almost as soon as she put the seating plan down. "I almost forgot! I'll be right back." Kotori dashed out of the room before Umi could even ask her what she'd forgotten.

The brunette returned a few minutes later, carrying a large, clear garment bag in her arms, the see-through plastic doing little to hide the contents inside. Umi could feel the apprehension build in her abdomen, shrivelling up her insides like a fruit left outside on a hot summer day. _Oh no…_

Working the dress free of the bag, Kotori held it up from its hanger so that the hem was off the floor.

Obviously still unfinished, the cream-coloured dress glinted faintly, giving off a soft golden glow in the summer morning sun. The skirt was made of a sheer, silky material, and the bodice had been heavily embroidered in a pattern of vines, leaves, and tiny flowers. She couldn't see it, but Umi knew that concealed behind the creation was a train that had to be twice as long as she stood tall.

"What do you think, Umi-chan?"

Umi raised a slightly-shaking finger. "T-That's not— _I'm_ not wearing that… am I?"

Kotori laughed, the sound echoing through the apartment like music notes. "No, silly, this is for me. I _would_ like to know what you think about it, though."

An immediate blush crept up to her face as Umi stood up. "O-Oh." Embarrassment crashed over her like a wave at her hasty, fear-fueled assumption. She was reminded, once more, of how lucky she was to have Kotori as her fiancée; it could have been very easy for someone else who was not as warm-hearted to take what she had said completely the wrong way.

She reached out to touch one lacy, embroidered, cream sleeve; the velvety softness of the fabric underneath her fingertips did not surprise her. "Did you make this?" she asked softly, floored by the amount of detail that had gone into the garment.

Kotori nodded. Her voice was suddenly shy. "Do you think it suits me?"

"It's absolutely amazing," she assured her. Warmth filled the previously apprehensive pit of her stomach when Umi realized she meant every word she was saying. "You'll look beautiful in it."

The brunette smiled, the expression crinkling the corners of her eyes. "I'm glad you like it, Umi-chan. You can't see it when it's completely done until we get married, but I'm glad I could give you a preview."

Umi frowned. "Why can't you show me what it looks like when it's finished?"

Carefully putting the unfinished dress back in its garment bag, Kotori gave her an indulgent look. "Umi-chan, don't you know the tradition of not being able to see the bride in her dress until her wedding day?"

"No," she told her. "I don't think I agree with that tradition."

Kotori giggled. "Traditions are important, Umi-chan. Speaking of dresses, though, we should discuss what _you're_ going to wear."

It was not a topic that had been brought up very much between the two of them in their planning sessions, but she supposed that a discussion regarding it was inevitable. After all, there was no way Kotori was going to let her go through the ceremony in her hunting gear.

Taking her hand again, Kotori brought her back to the dining room table and picked up a magazine from the windowsill, flipping through the pages too rapidly to be carefully looking at the images in it at all. "I know you don't like dresses, Umi-chan," she mused, half-to-herself. "What about a kimono?"

Umi paused, thinking the idea through in her head. She wasn't much for formal wear, but she had to admit the idea of wearing a kimono was a far more appealing one than the multitude of evening gowns that Kotori had made her look through last time. "That… wouldn't be terrible, I suppose."

Judging by the way Kotori smiled, the brunette understood the meaning behind the grudging sentence. "Then I'll make sure to come up with something suitable for you."

Looking down at her magazine again, Kotori pulled her pad of paper towards her with her pen stuck in her mouth, occasionally flipping through it for ideas. Umi sat in silence beside her, content to just watch her fiancée draw. "Have you thought about the dance we're doing yet, Umi-chan?" she asked nonchalantly after a considerable length of time.

Umi looked at her sharply. "D-Dance?" she echoed. She could feel flustered heat making its way up her neck at the mere mention of the word.

"Mmhm," Kotori hummed without looking up. "I promised my mother we'd dance together at the ceremony."

"Wait—In front of _everyone_?" she asked, unable to contain the note of panic in her voice. "No. Kotori, you _know_ I can't—" Malefic images suddenly crowded in front of her vision and Umi resisted the temptation to put her hands over her face as though they could block out the possibilities that she was envisioning at that moment.

"Yes, you can," Kotori said patiently, still drawing. "There's a specific dance I'd like to do, if you don't mind. I'll send the video to Eli-chan. She can teach you, right?"

 _No, I_ do _mind,_ Umi wanted to shout, but what remained of her sense of dignity would not let the words past her lips. "B-But I'm not—" she sputtered. "I'm a _horrible_ dancer," she croaked out. "It's—"

The word "shameless" couldn't make it out of the back of her throat either, because Kotori had finally put down her pen and was giving her a placating look she knew all too well. "Umi-chan," her fiancée began sweetly, "I know you don't like dancing, and I _promise_ that after this, we will never have to do it again. But do you think you could do it for me… just this once?"

Umi squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment, not wanting to look at the pleading expression in the brunette's golden gaze before she let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. She bit her lip, her heart suddenly thumping too hard and too fast for her sternum. "Fine," she ground out at last.

Kotori beamed at her. "Thank you, Umi-chan! Remind me to text Eli-chan the video in a few days so she can get started on learning it so she can teach it to you."

 _Is it too much for me to hope she forgets?_ She quashed the wishful thinking under her better judgment, knowing that intentionally sabotaging whatever Kotori wanted Eli to teach her would not end well for her.

She closed her eyes again, surprised herself when a small smile crept up on her lips. _There_ is _really only one person I would do this for, isn't there?_ She could sacrifice her self-respect—and quite possibly the last of the respect her friends had for her—for the person who had reached out a hand to stop her from becoming someone that she knew she did not want to be.

 _Whatever happens, this is worth it._

* * *

Maki dragged her feet down to dialysis, half-drunk coffee in one hand and her ID badge in the other.

After pulling in a few favours, she'd managed switch around her patient list so that Yazawa Coutarou was now last on her rounds list. He was currently scheduled for 1830, a mere half an hour before she was due to leave. Of course, evening rounds never went the way she would've liked them to and it was now 1917, a fact that she was sure the boy's sister would not be happy about—if she had bothered to stick around for the appointment.

Privately, Maki sincerely hoped that she hadn't, because she had made sure the boy was last on her list for a reason, but she didn't put much stock into that: Yazawa Nico liked yelling at medical professionals far too much to pass up the opportunity to do so, and she wasn't disappointed when she finally let herself in through the doors of the dialysis ward—she could hear the woman's voice from where she was standing by the doorway.

One of the nurses gave her a grimace as she passed the nursing station. Normally, Maki didn't condone gossip about patients and would've called the nurse out on it, but unfortunately, this time, she understood the sentiment behind it all too well.

She checked her datapad, noting that the younger Yazawa's appointment had been scheduled from 1630 until 2030. Judging by the noise coming from the bed furthest from the ward doors, she assumed that that was the bed he was occupying, though she made sure to double check the chart notes on her datapad just in case. Once Maki was sure she had the right bed, she drew back the navy curtains designed to offer its occupants some privacy.

Yazawa Coutarou was sitting up in the bed, something that she was sure the nurses had explained more than once was inadvisable during the dialysis session. He was mirroring a strange, awkward pose that his older sister was currently demonstrating, complete with a very odd looking hand gesture. "What the—" The half-completed sentence slipped out before she could control it, but she cut herself off before she could finish it.

Yazawa Nico swivelled her head around sharply at the sound of her voice, crimson eyes locking onto her own almost immediately as she straightened up.

Maki opened her mouth again once she was sure an unprofessional curse wasn't going to make its way out in her speech, unintentional or not. "What are you doing? You _know_ that you're not supposed to be moving around during your sessions." She tried to address the boy instead of his sister, though she could feel a scarlet gaze burning into the side of her neck.

The younger Yazawa shrugged as he slumped back onto his pillows, clutching one to his chest. "Bored," he replied, the words muffled by the fluff.

"Call yourself some doctor," the black-haired woman sniffed beside her. "Of course he's going to be bored. Aren't you forty-five minutes late, _Doctor_ Nishikino?"

Maki squashed her temper as fast as it flared. _It's not like you weren't going to be here for another hour._ She kept that fact to herself as she kept her gaze focussed on her patient and not the obviously irate woman beside her. "I got caught up with some of my other patients," she explained to him. "Sorry about that."

"S'okay," he mumbled.

"How are you doing?" she asked him, determined to ignore the sputtering of the elder Yazawa beside her, noting down his vitals as she spoke. From the nurse's admission notes, he seemed to be responding well, but his dialysis appointment wasn't necessarily the purpose of her visit today.

"Okay. Tired," he tacked on as an afterthought. "I'm going to take a nap," he announced, burrowing into the mountain of pillows piled behind his head.

With her patient's safety assured, Maki finally turned to the short woman beside her. The faint hint of red on her cheeks was evidence of her persisting anger, and Maki had to swallow a ball of irritation before she addressed her at last. "I've got some news for you. Do you want to discuss this here, or…?" She intentionally left the end of her sentence vague.

Yazawa cast a look at her brother, whose eyes were now closed as he snored sleepily, and jerked her head in the direction of the curtains. "Outside, I suppose," she said.

Maki held the curtains open for her as the shorter woman brushed past her.

"Where?" she demanded, looking around the dialysis ward.

"Is that office over there good enough for you?" Maki asked her, her tone coming out snappier than she assumed it would, but she found that she didn't regret it. When Yazawa Nico didn't agree with something, it was impossible to get a word in until the self-proclaimed idol ranted herself out—picking out the tone of other peoples' speech was usually an ability that was beyond her.

Yazawa shrugged. "Fine, whatever. Makes no difference to me." She smirked. "I know all of you doctors like to assert your presences or whatever in those offices though."

Maki bit back the comment she wanted to make in response as she led the way into the nursing office. It was tiny, cramped, and in no way ideal, but at least there was a door behind them to close. She consulted her datapad out of habit, not necessity, as Yazawa crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. "What?"

"We found a match for your brother," she informed her. She raised a dark red eyebrow as she watched the emotions flicker across the other woman's face for perhaps a second before she shut them down.

"What?"

Scowling, Maki repeated her sentence. "I said, we found a match for him."

Slowly, the black-haired woman uncrossed her arms and took two steps forward. Unfortunately, those two steps were all she needed to be practically face to face with her.

Cringing backwards ever so slightly instinctively, Maki was unused to the physical proximity of the other woman—something she in no way made allowance for outside of her roommates, who employed physical gestures of any kind very rarely.

"And you're sure you're not making this up?"

It was her turn to sputter. "W-What? Why would I make this up?"

Yazawa turned her nose up and closed her eyes in an expression of superiority. "Hmph. Just checking." She cracked open an eyelid. "You know, you only react to things when people accuse you of things that aren't true. Ever noticed that?"

Maki stared at her, utterly speechless as her brain tried to formulate something to say. A million thoughts galloped through her mind at about a hundred miles an hour, but no coherent words came out of her mouth. "But you—I— _What_?"

The black-haired woman snorted. "Y'know, I thought doctors were supposed to be professional." She shrugged. "But thanks for telling me, I guess, even though you were supposed to call me."

Surprisingly, there was significantly less of an edge to her voice than Maki was used to—or had come to expect from her. _How I know that, I don't want to know._

She had somewhat regained her composure by the time Yazawa reached the end of her sentence.

"Well, I'm a busy person," she replied, endeavouring to make her tone as neutral as possible.

"Yeah, I'm aware," Yazawa retorted. "Still, it would've been nice to have a heads up. Is that all you wanted to say?" The caustic tone in her words had returned.

"No," she replied. "There're some forms you need to sign with your brother. I'll have them ready when he comes in for his next appointment."

"Whatever." Yazawa had turned to go and had her hand on the doorknob already before she turned back. The next words out of her mouth surprised her more than the observation that she had made earlier. "Hey…You're going to be doing the surgery, aren't you?"

Struck by the sudden reticent quality of her voice, Maki stared at her for a few heartbeats, startled into an answer. "Y-Yes, I am."

The other woman sniffed again. "Good," she muttered, before she turned the doorknob and let herself out of her office to leave Maki standing there, confused, awkward, and with a very uncharacteristic, unprofessional blush creeping up her cheeks.

 _I… don't understand her at all. Why would she have an argument with me, then tell me she's glad I'm going to be performing her brother's surgery? Who the hell has these kinds of mood swings?_ She shook her head once, dislodging dark red locks of hair as she resisted the temptation to run her hands through it.

She waited until she heard the swish of the curtains closing again before she left the office, dodging past another physician on her way out of the ward. Maki checked her watch as she waited for the elevator outside: 2001. She sighed, the stress of the day weighing down on her like a tonne of bricks. For once, she was glad that her newest batch of samples weren't in yet, because all Maki wanted to do was to get some sleep before she had to wake up the next morning.

Stowing her datapad in her office and locking it behind her, she waved goodbye to Kotori, who had just shown up for her evening shift, on her way out. There was a glow in the brunette's eyes and Maki remembered that Umi had said something about wedding planning before leaving the apartment that morning. She allowed herself a small, amused smile—there was no doubt, judging by the content expression that she was wearing alone, that Kotori had… _convinced_ Umi into some sort of agreement for their upcoming wedding.

 _Now this, I have to see._

With that satisfactory thought in mind at what the brunette could've possibly come up with _and_ gotten Umi to agree to, she left through the doors of the emergency department.

The air outside was only marginally cooler than what it had been that afternoon, but it was still a relief to breathe something that hadn't been filtered thousands of times over by the ventilation system in the hospital.

Maki stretched her arms above her head as she followed the familiar, ten-minute walk back to their apartment.

 _Right now, all I need is some sleep._

Honoka had promised her that her new samples would show up tomorrow afternoon by the latest, and she intended to get some actual rest before she returned to tackling the latest problems that had sprung up in her research.

* * *

 _"Thank you, Eli."_

The words echoed in her mind as Eli leaned against the frosted glass door. It had stayed cool despite the thick whorls of steam and she pressed her forehead against it gratefully. Her brain had filed away those three words before it had hit her and she had stopped to realize the weight of the phrase. What it _meant._

Had it necessarily been a bad thing? Somehow, she didn't think so.

But nonetheless, the rational part of her brain warned her to be cautious; although she didn't think Toujou had any reason to lie to her, there was still the matter of her advisor, whom she could throw further than she trusted him _._ She hadn't forgotten his blatant threat and Eli knew without even thinking about it that he would have more than one objection to the way they had been interacting.

The thought of Toujou's chief advisor, though, paled in comparison to what she imagined Umi and Maki's reactions would be. _She_ might have tentatively given Toujou her trust, but she knew her two friends wouldn't, not by any stretch of the imagination. They would be concerned for her, and Eli couldn't see an easy way to convince them when she wasn't one hundred percent sure of Toujou's intentions herself. While she was certain it was nothing malicious, she knew she wouldn't be able to explain the nature of their relationship to her friends in a way that would satisfy them.

She turned the cool metal handle, the shower drizzling to a stop. The remnants of water swirled around the grated drain and with it, she imagined her dilemmas following suit.

Dripping water on the floor, Eli wrapped a towel around herself as she stepped out of the shower. Her hand slipped for a moment against the slick surface of the shower door as she groped for a comb, intending to untangle the blonde mess of hair on her head. Clipping up her bra and pulling on a shirt and her underwear, she went to wipe the fog from the mirror with a hand.

Suddenly, the lights in the bathroom turned off, plunging her into darkness. Eli froze, her heart beginning to race. She hadn't heard the sound of the front door being unlocked, nor had there been the sound of a greeting; the only way to turn off the bathroom lights from the outside was if someone flipped the circuit breaker in the kitchen next to the front door. Umi had texted her earlier to let her know that she would be out for the evening, and while Maki was due home soon, she would've had the brains not to turn off all the lights in the apartment. But if it wasn't Maki, then who? An intruder?

"Who is it?" she called out. There was no point in pretending she wasn't there—whoever it was already knew from the sound of the shower that had been running a minute previously.

There was no answer.

Feeling around the sink countertop in the darkness, she closed her fingers around the hilt of trench knife that Umi had given her. She had taken to carrying it everywhere with her—even in the bathroom—a habit that she had picked up after spending only a few nights at the district building full of people she didn't trust—save for one, perhaps.

"Hello?" she called again, straining to hear in the utter silence over the sound of her rapid heartbeat.

There was no reply, but Eli thought she could hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Her fingers tightened around the knife as she pressed her back against the wall of the bathroom, anticipating where the door would open and placing herself in the best possible position to react in case it _was_ an intruder.

The door slammed open, and Eli had a momentary glimpse of a figure dressed in all black, outlined by the moonlight beyond before he burst through the door. The blur of a silver knife drove into the wall above her head with an audible crunch as she ducked, dodging under his other arm and escaping into the hallway.

Someone grabbed her hair from behind, yanking her backwards and Eli stumbled. Scrambling to her feet, she lashed out with the knife in her right hand. She missed, but at least her assailant knew she was armed now, though how much the fact might've deterred him, she didn't know. Slowly, she backed into the shadows of her room, her mind working on overdrive. _What the hell? Who—_

Before she could complete the thought, the man charged in through the bedroom door; she had no time to react as he locked an arm around her neck, shoving her against the wall. His other arm twisted the wrist of her hand that was holding onto the trench knife, forcing it away from them at an angle so that she couldn't stab him with it.

Eli tried to slip out of his grasp, but it was pointless. He was far too strong for her to break his hold on her throat with her one free hand digging into his forearm even if she could wrest her other hand out of his grip and somehow, she was able to process the fact that if he kept going, soon, he wouldn't need the knife that he had somehow tucked back into his belt.

Over the sound of her pounding heartbeat and desperate struggle for breath, she heard the sound of the front door opening again. A few agonizing seconds passed.

"Eli?" Maki's voice called in the darkness. "Are you home?"

* * *

Maki narrowed her eyes at the darkened apartment. She was sure someone was home, because the front door had been unlocked, but she was _un_ sure of why Eli wanted to spend her evening in complete darkness without the air conditioning unit on, especially given the summer heat.

Her sense of unease sharpened as she spotted the open circuit breaker panel next to the refrigerator in the kitchen, and she called out irritably again. "Eli? Why the _hell_ are all the lights off?"

There was no response.

Maki could feel her heart beginning to pound against her sternum. Something felt off—there was something very, very wrong about the situation in front of her right now and she felt her hand slide into the pocket of the lab coat where she kept the gun Umi had given her, making sure it was still there. A cold sweat broke out over her skin as she strode over to the circuit panel and reset the breaker.

The lights blinked on in the kitchen area at once, though the rest of the living room was still dark. She spotted light coming from down the hallway and she made her way over to it, poking her head around the corner. The door to the lit, empty bathroom was open, and she could make out wet footprints leading into the bedroom at the end—Eli's.

Maki advanced down the hallway, steps directed and purposeful, but she couldn't control the way her heart thumped against her ribcage. _Breathe, Nishikino._ It was easier said than done—her breaths were coming in fast and shallow and she could almost feel the pH of her blood increasing.

Rounding the corner, it took her perhaps a fraction of a heartbeat to process what was happening in front of her, her body snapping into action before her mind had a chance to really think about what she was doing. Maki drew the gun from the pocket of her lab coat and released the safety on it, the _click_ of the small piece of weaponry causing the man—she assumed it was a man—dressed from head to foot in all black to turn his head towards her slightly. He made no motion to move from where he had Eli pinned against the wall, thick, gloved fingers around her throat.

Maki raised the gun to shoulder level, icy calm spreading from her lungs as her fingers tightened around the handgun's grip. "Let her go," she growled, enunciating each word slowly. Her index finger inched towards the trigger. Even if she'd never fired a gun at an actual person before, she knew the theory.

The man glanced at the weapon in her head and for a second, it was as though he was going to comply before three things happened in such quick succession that it was almost impossible to tell who had done what first.

The man released his grip on Eli's throat and wrist, dropping her and drawing the knife in his belt at the same time Eli forced the blade of the knife in her freed hand upwards. There was a single heartbeat of silence before a burst of scarlet blossomed against the near-pristine surroundings of the bedroom; the glass of the window shattered in the background the same moment she heard a cry of pain punctuated by the sound of a knife blade clattering to the ground.

Maki had no time to worry about the man that had smashed the bedroom window in his attempt to escape as she dashed forward, catching Eli before she hit the floor.

"Maki," she breathed out between gritted teeth, hand pressed tightly against her side. Maki prised Eli's cold, clammy fingers away from her hip only to catch the sight of ruby red staining through the thin material of her shirt.

"Dammit," she swore out loud, wrapping her free arm around the blonde's shoulder in an effort to support her.

Eli's eyes were squeezed shut, her breathing coming in short, rapid breaths as her nails dug into Maki's forearm. When she opened them, the pupils of her blue eyes were dilated as she stared back at her.

Maki seized a fistful of Eli's shirt to press it against the long, jagged wound that curved upwards from around her waist to her back in the shape of a hook. She didn't need to examine the injury in detail to know its severity; the amount of blood already on the floor was a testament to how fast she needed to act. "Eli," she snapped, "stay awake, do you hear me?"

If there was a reply, she didn't hear it as Maki fumbled with the personal safety device hooked on an inside pocket of her lab coat. The tiny plastic transmitter been given to all medical personnel who worked at the hospital in case they found themselves in a situation where they needed help; she jammed her finger against the button, knowing that it would alert the code team in the emergency department of the hospital and lead them quickly to her location on the university campus.

Eli's forehead dropped against her shoulder as she dug in the pockets of her coat. _Fuck, I know it's in here! Where is it?_ "Don't close your eyes," she ordered again as she lowered her friend to the floor and snatched a few pillows off the bedstead, stuffing them underneath her knees and throwing a blanket over her upper body.

Her fingers brushed against the item she was looking for—a needle she always carried with her in case she came across someone experiencing a severe allergic reaction. There was no time to site the intramuscular injection as she pulled off the cap of the needle and jabbed it into Eli's thigh. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing.

She shook Eli's shoulders again in an effort to keep her awake, all too aware of the cool, pale skin underneath her bloody fingers, trying to ignore the sound of her shallow gasps for breath despite the epinephrine injection. "Goddammit Eli," she cursed, throat raw and aching. "If you die on me, I swear to god, I'll bring you back just so I can kill you myself for agreeing to do something so fucking stupid."

The sound of loud footsteps at the front door registered in her senses as Maki heard the code team stumble into the apartment. "In here," she called, raising her voice as a bustle of paramedics swooped in on the scene.

She let one of them pull an oxygen mask over Eli's nose and mouth before she sat back on her heels and watched them carry her out of the room. One of the paramedics paused to speak to her. "We'll meet you in Emerg, Doctor Nishikino."

Maki nodded blankly as she stared after them. She held her breath for a long moment until her lungs burned; exhaustion set in her limbs as the last of the adrenaline surge left her body, leaving her dazed, numb and listless.

The past thirty minutes felt unreal, as though she'd been watching from the sidelines in a badly-filmed movie. The world tilted, the colours wrong and red. Nothing even _smelled_ right; the acrid, metallic tang of blood permeated her sense of smell and everything was suddenly eerily silent—not the silence of sleep, but the complete, unending absence of sound.

She tried to disregard how badly her arm was shaking as she reached into the pocket of her shirt, painting a faint bloody trail across the white of her lab coat as she pulled out her phone. She brought up her list of contacts, picking one from the top and held the metallic device to her ear as the call connected.

Umi answered on the first ring. "Maki? What is it?"

She swallowed; Maki had to clear her throat before she could speak, and she cringed away at the sound of her own voice. "Umi, you need to come back. _Now_."

* * *

Nozomi settled herself at her office desk, picking up the police report that Koizumi had put on it the day before. Its front page featured a photograph of the bounty hunter that had been killed the day after the bombing of the outer district and she vaguely remembered that Kouchou had told her they were still looking into the details of his involvement.

She had just picked up her pen to read through the rest of the report when the phone on her desk beeped. She frowned; she had given Koizumi specific instructions not to let anyone in to see her that morning and she had half a mind to ignore it and let it continue to ring, but her sense of caution won her over in the end—Koizumi wouldn't be calling her without a _very_ good reason.

Nozomi picked up the phone.

"Yes?"

"T-Toujou-sama? It's about Ayase-san. She was attacked last night."


	18. Crescendo

_"I shouldn't have pushed her so hard to make a decision. I should have known that there are some things out there that are better left alone. Even if she ended up finding her sister, it was not worth almost dying for._

 _And now, knowing what we have put our lives on the line for, how are we supposed to move forward? We have all had days where no amount of rhetoric makes them any less terrible, but we dry our tears, remember the things that matter, and continue on—because life_ is _both good and bad. We try not to forget the former exists, we endure the latter, and we live on._

 _So why am I so terrified to find out what our next days will look like?" —Sonoda Umi_

* * *

The smell of antiseptic and the sound of machines beeped in her peripheral senses, but Umi kept her gaze trained on the form of her redheaded friend sitting slumped in a chair. "How did this happen?" she repeated. Her voice sounded hollow, and it had nothing to do with the run she had made back from the outer districts to the hospital.

Maki shook her head slowly. "I don't know, Umi," she ground out. "Don't ask me. If I did, there'd be no way in hell we'd be here." She balled the material of her lab coat into a fist, creasing the heavy white material into uneven folds.

Umi tried to ignore the fact that she knew whose blood was on it.

She uncrossed her arms, shifting slightly from the stiff position she'd taken against the wall for the past few hours. "I don't understand," she said, dark blue bangs falling into her face; brushing them aside, the fingers of the hand she had used tightened into a fist. "How did they find out who she was?"

Maki's shoulders rose before she dropped them in a shrug. "I don't know," she said again, before she lowered the volume of her voice, its tone intensifying. "But think about it. If they were smart enough to find out who she was, then they would've known that we don't keep shit in the apartment. Anything that's actually important is locked away in the lab, so the only reason for them to even _go_ to the apartment would be…" She trailed off.

Cursing silently in her head, Umi sucked in a ragged breath. She knew Maki was right. "They were after her specifically," she finished quietly.

She remembered the scene that had greeted her before she had even reached their apartment complex. There had been a group of people gathered just outside the campus gates—when she had gotten close enough to see what was going on, she saw the police pulling the body of the security guard out of the booth next to the front gate, his throat slit open in a bright red smile.

But that had not been the worst of it. She had run into the brightness of the emergency department at the hospital only to find Maki waiting for her at the door, expression exhausted and vacant, clutching her phone in one hand as though it was a lifeline.

 _I shouldn't have gone hunting last night. Maybe if I had been there…_

She cast a glance at Eli's prone form lying on the bed next to them. If it wasn't for the IV inserted in the back of her left hand and the pulse oximeter on her finger, she might have been sleeping.

"Why, though?" she asked suddenly, half to herself. "She's not even…" Her thought had been _anyone important_ , but Umi could not bring herself to say it out loud. _Because that's not true._

Maki let out a dry laugh, the sound caustic and bitter. " _Why_? I'll tell you why," she snarled viciously. "You think she wasn't putting her neck on the line when she agreed to work for Toujou? They've probably figured out she's the one behind Toujou getting her hands on all that information. Convenient, isn't it?" she spat. "Toujou gets to sit all safe and pretty behind that desk of hers while _this_ —" she swung her arm in the direction of the hospital bed to punctuate her sentence, "happens to the people who work for her. You think she actually cared about keeping Eli safe? About keeping _any_ of us safe?"

Umi looked to the side, a frown tugging at the corner of her mouth. Her personal interaction with the district ruler had been in the form of a single, very brief episode, but that had not been the impression that she had received from the violet-haired woman, especially when she factored in the way that she had looked at Eli. "No," she said slowly. "I don't think that's the case."

Snorting, Maki swivelled her gaze towards the door. "When are you going to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt they don't deserve, Umi? Do you even think it's crossed her mind that this happened to Eli because she was able to get information they didn't want her to have? Forget about the fact that there was no way in hell it was of any use to her personally—the fact that _Toujou_ was getting it was enough."

Her lack of an immediate response was all the ammunition Maki needed to keep going. "That bitch," she growled under her breath. "If she shows up, hoping to apologize to her, she'll find out I meant exactly what I said to her last time."

Reigning in her own sense of anguish and guilt, Umi took a few steps forward to put a hand on her redheaded friend's shoulder. "Don't," she advised. "That won't help."

Maki snorted again. "Maybe not, but it'll make me feel better." She pulled in a deep breath and let it out before she finally deflated, leaning forward in the chair and burying her forehead against the heels of her hands. "Goddammit Umi, what if I didn't show up when I did?" she asked, helplessness and pain creeping into her voice at last.

Umi closed her eyes, feeling sick at the mere mention of the possibility. She shut the door on her thoughts before they progressed, pushing them to the back of her consciousness. "Don't," she said again.

Dropping a hand, Maki looked up at her with a worn out, amethyst gaze. "You know, the fact that you told her to keep that knife on her probably saved her life, right? I don't think he was expecting her to be armed."

Her fingers closed around the strap that held her bow and arrows in place. On any other day, Umi would have been glad to hear that her sense of precaution had been warranted, but not today.

She had just opened her mouth to reply when Maki gasped.

"The knife."

Confused, Umi raised an eyebrow at her, wondering what she was getting at. "What?"

"That knife," the redhead repeated. "She—"

Maki was interrupted by the sound of a polite knock on the door, causing both of them to turn and look in its direction.

Kotori popped her head around the corner, her tired expression softening when she caught sight of both of them. She was still wearing her scrubs, and blearily, Umi remembered that it was time for her to go home after her shift. She took a few steps towards the doorway.

Her fiancée made her way across the almost-silent hospital room until she was just in front of her, arms and hands spread in an open gesture. Wordlessly, Umi let Kotori wrap her arms around her. It was an act she did not normally allow in public, but at the moment, she no longer knew what was normal and what was not.

"She's going to be okay, Umi," the brunette told her softly.

Umi let herself relax very slightly. "I know. But still, I…"

"There was no way for you to know that this was going to happen," Kotori murmured. "Just focus on keeping yourselves safe in the future."

There were perhaps a hundred things that she would have wanted to say under normal circumstances, but all of them felt pitifully inadequate in the face of her sense of failure and the emotions that roiled just under the surface, kept painfully in check by some force of will she did not know she still had control over at the moment.

"Okay." It was the only word she could say without embarrassing herself.

Kotori gave her a small, fleeting smile when they broke apart, the expression belied by the concern that took over her features when she went over to speak to Maki, the pair of them bent anxiously over the yards of paper that the telemetry machine had printed out in the last few hours.

She rested a hand against the railing of one of the unoccupied beds. Though there was the sound of quiet conversation coming from Maki and her fiancée, accompanied by the steady beep of the machines in the background, the room felt empty, as though it was caught in some form of perfect, lifeless clarity.

Her thoughts were interrupted when there came a louder, harsher knock on the door.

Umi spun around, only to find herself face to face with none other than the district ruler of Tokyo.

For a moment, shock blanketed the rest of her mind.

"T-Toujou-sama," she stammered.

* * *

Nozomi had been prepared to face both of Eli's friends personally before she'd even stepped foot in the hospital, but the forlorn wariness etched in Sonoda Umi's features and the anger that glared back at her out of Nishikino Maki's amethyst gaze almost made her want to reconsider. There was another woman in the room she didn't know, but the young brunette was gazing between her and the other occupants of the room with a panicked expression of confusion—like a deer caught in the headlights.

The redheaded physician stood up abruptly as Nozomi took a single step over the threshold, motioning for her security guards to stay outside and closing the door behind her.

"What are you doing here?" she snarled at her.

If she was honest with herself, Nozomi knew she shouldn't have been expecting a warm welcome.

"The same reason you're all here, I expect," she replied blithely.

She hid her barren sense of guilt and regret in the only way she knew how, underneath a calm façade that fooled almost all of the people interacted with—save perhaps one. The agonizing breathlessness of the moments after Koizumi had hung up wasn't the doctor's to share. The surge of terror that had risen in her throat when the implications and possibilities raced through her mind at a hundred miles per hour wasn't for sale to her advisors who had no idea why she insisted on leaving the district building so urgently that morning. And she'd be three days dead before she allowed the moment of realization that had hit her in the chest like a physical blow on the way to the hospital to be spread across the internet like carrion waiting for the vultures.

 _All of the emotions I was told under no circumstances was I ever to show to anyone._ The fact was no longer true, but her list of _anyone_ did not include anyone that could hear her at the moment.

Nishikino's features twisted into a mask of anger as she took a few slow, measured steps towards her until they were practically face-to-face. It was a proximity that her security guards normally didn't allow for her, but there was a reason that she had left them outside of the door. "I warned you," she hissed, the tone of her voice colder than antarctic winter. "I told you last time that it didn't matter who you were, because if she got hurt because of _you_ , you'd pay."

"Oh, I'm aware."

The physician slammed the heel of her hand into the bedside table beside her, her expression as thunderous as a storm cloud. "So explain this! Tell me _exactly_ why someone tried to kill her last night. Didn't you promise her the best security you could offer?"

Nozomi sensed that there was something more that redhead wanted to say, but she was cut off abruptly by Sonoda Umi, who had strode forward and caught her sleeve in a gesture of sharp restraint. The flash of dark red on the white material caught the corner of her eye, and Nozomi swallowed once before she spoke again.

"I did. That was arranged for." The words tried to stick to her throat and she had to scrape them out, banishing the tremors underneath her voice to the back of her throat where they'd come from.

"So what—are you trying to tell me _Eli_ was the careless one?" Nishikino retorted, wrenching her arm out of her blue-haired friend's grip. She seemed to have forgotten who she was speaking to, but Nozomi wasn't here—nor was she particularly in the mood—to assert her position. _I'm here to apologize, but not to her._

Nozomi shook her head slightly. "No. That wasn't how they found her." The syllables of her next words felt like unfamiliar shapes on her tongue, thick against the back of her throat on their way out. "We—" She had to cut herself off before trying again. "Both Eli and I were careful. But… she had to say something out loud during one of my conferences. I'm almost positive that's what they used to identify her."

She ignored the scowl that appeared on Nishikino's face when she referred to Eli by her first name. The tall bounty hunter at her side took a step forward towards her, disbelief colouring her features. "Her _voice_? But— _How_?"

Looking up at the window, but seeing none of the morning sun outside, Nozomi closed her eyes for the briefest moment before she opened them again. "I don't know," she admitted truthfully. "But the number of people who have that kind of access and the resources to do so are limited."

"But you're going to find out, aren't you?" Nishikino challenged her. Her amethyst eyes dared her to contradict her.

Nozomi met her fierce gaze equally. "Of course I intend to," she informed her, keeping the tone of her voice light.

The redheaded physician held her gaze for a few heartbeats longer, the anger in her eyes not quite spent.

Fifty heartbeats passed between them in silence.

"Then you're going to help us with something else," Nishikino said suddenly; her voice was marginally more controlled, as though she had finally realized that yelling wasn't going to get them anywhere.

From the way Sonoda Umi jerked her head up, she too, had no clue what Nishikino wanted to say. Nozomi quirked an eyebrow at her, feeble curiosity stirring under the surface despite the wholly unwanted situation they were currently in. "Oh? What might that be?"

The redhead straightened up, squaring her shoulders at her full height. "I need access to the citizen registry."

Regarding her skeptically, as though she was just another politician she was used to dealing with on a day to day basis, Nozomi pressed her lips together, narrowing her eyes. "And, may I ask, why you _'need'_ access to it?"

She watched Nishikino breathe in through her nose, the expression in her gaze darkening. "There's a knife on the floor back at our apartment. Eli had it with her last night. I'm almost positive she stabbed the man who attacked her with it when he tried to run. You'd like to figure out who he was, wouldn't you?" The aggression in the question was unmistakeable.

Opening her mouth, Nozomi closed it before she said something too carelessly; as interested as she was, she didn't intend to give in to the hotheaded young physician so easily. "Don't you think it would be more productive if you handed that knife over the police?" she inquired, tilting her head slightly to one side for effect.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sonoda Umi stiffen very slightly. Nishikino laughed, the sound derisive. "The _police_? I don't think so. Forgive me if I don't find them very competent. After all, they were asked with keeping us safe, weren't they? If you ask me, I think they're doing a pretty poor job of it so far."

Nozomi had forgotten about the suspicion that Eli had viewed her with the first time they'd met. _She only trusts—trusted—me because we spoke about things that were too personal—for both of us. But… that's not the case here. To them, I'm the head of state that couldn't care less about Eli's wellbeing, whether or not we know each other personally._ Judging by what she knew about the blonde in question, Nozomi didn't think she had told them about the things the two of them had discussed—and even if she had, it was more than clear that neither Nishikino nor Sonoda approved of their interaction.

The redhead swept on. "I want to do that blood analysis myself. That way, I know there's nobody sabotaging my results."

Nozomi hesitated. As much as she disliked her advisor's constant nagging, Fujiwara's words rung in her head. " _Giving ordinary citizens access to information they aren't allowed for a reason? Do you_ want _to get assassinated?"_

 _However…_

Nishikino's reaction to her words was an almost painful echo of the very first time she'd met Eli; Nozomi had absolutely no doubt as to what her intentions were, because she might've been wearing them on her sleeve.

In that moment, an odd thought struck her. _In this world, who do we trust more? The people whose intentions we can see, or the people we're told to trust?_ For her, it might've been the latter. For the people standing in front of her, Nozomi knew it was the former.

Nishikino took half a step towards her, the fingers of one hand balling up tightly in a fist. "You're here to see her, aren't you?" She gestured in the direction of the bed by the window as if to emphasize her question. "If you give me access to that database—hell, I don't even care if it's only for five minutes—we'll leave you alone."

"Maki—" The blue-haired woman reached out to grip her friend's shoulder, but the redhead shook her off, glaring at her.

"Don't argue with me, Umi," she snapped, turning her attention to Nozomi once more. "Well?"

Nozomi resisted the temptation to fiddle with her hair. _Perhaps… it's better if I let her do the analysis anyways._ She pretended to think about it for a few minutes, though she had already come to a conclusion. "Fine," she said delicately at last. "I believe we have an agreement."

Raising her left hand, she undid the clasp of the bracelet that dangled there, and held it out. "Take this to my secretary in the district building. She'll be able to provide you with a one-time access key to the citizen database."

Nishikino eyed it warily. "Why the hell do I have to go all the way over there? Can't you just call her? Or get one of your bodyguards to do it?"

A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Oh, Nishikino-san. I don't think I need to remind you about the danger of information. Would _you_ trust this information to a phone call?"

She saw the redheaded woman press her lips together tightly in a faint scowl, before she thrust out her open hand. The answer was there, but Nozomi knew that the physician didn't want to admit that she was right out loud. Dropping the bracelet into it, she watched her close her fingers tightly over it.

"Umi, Kotori, let's go." She gripped Sonoda's arm with her free hand and hauled her out of the hospital room, the brunette—who had remained silent the entire time, her golden gaze wide as she watched the exchange before her—following close behind.

The door closed behind them.

* * *

The moment she closed the door to Eli's hospital room, Umi rounded on Maki. " _What_ are you doing?" Disbelief shook her voice as she raised a finger to point in the direction of the closed door, only to catch the eye of one of Toujou's bodyguards.

Maki did not answer her immediately, pushing past her to stride down the hallway. She didn't stop until they were past the nursing station and out of earshot of the two men outside the door. Shrugging, she finally turned back to meet Umi's gaze. "What needed to be done," she replied simply, a slight tone of indignation in her answer.

"You're going to leave her _alone_ in there? With Eli?" She tried to keep the shock out of her voice. _Half an hour ago, she was telling me how much she hated her._

Kotori tugged on her arm, a small reminder of restraint.

The redhead let out a soft snarl, but Umi did not miss the gleam of determination in her amethyst eyes. "I didn't say I liked it. But we need to find out who did this—and hell will freeze over before I trust the police to give us an accurate report on that knife if we hand it over."

Umi shook her head. "No, I understand that," she said. "But are you sure that we should be leaving Eli alone with her?"

Maki tossed a look back at her. "She's hooked up to a vitals monitor. Toujou couldn't hurt her without anyone noticing if she wanted to, even if she _is_ the head or state or whoever." There was a small pause. "She acts like she doesn't care and that she's above all the rest of us, but I know what I saw when she walked in through that door. The two of them have some – _thing_ going on. I hate to admit it, but I don't think she's got it in her to actually hurt her—on purpose, at least."

Umi thought she knew what Maki was talking about. She was used to the carefree, charismatic air around Toujou, but there had been more than a few instances during the brief interaction that she was sure she had seen some flicker of emotion cross the violet-haired woman's face before she erased it. It was subtle, but it had been there.

 _I know Eli said she trusted her. That has to be enough, right?_

Finally, she nodded once.

Maki met her gaze, clenching her first around the piece of jewellery that Toujou had given her. "I'm going to go to the district building, and that secretary of hers better not give me a hard time. Umi, I need you to go back to the apartment and get that knife. Bring it down to the lab and don't leave until I get back."

"Okay," Umi acknowledged with a dip of her head.

"I can stay here and watch over Eli-chan," Kotori instantly offered at her side.

Umi turned to her fiancée, knowing that she had just finished a twelve-hour shift. "Are you sure?"

Kotori nodded seriously. "I'll be fine." Her expression turned solemn as Umi placed her hand over her fiancée's; the brunette gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry about me, Umi-chan—just go and find out who did this."

" _That_ you can be sure of," Maki growled from a few steps away. "Come on, we're wasting time."

* * *

Eli awoke to the uncomfortable sensation of afternoon sun on her face. Her side felt like it had been replaced by crushed glass, with gritty eyes and stiff hands; she felt slightly nauseous, complete with a bout of light-headedness as she blinked in the too-bright glare that was compounded by the sterile white of a hospital.

"Good afternoon, Eli."

She froze, eyes widening. _Wait… I know that voice—_ "Toujou?" she mumbled, still half-groggy from what had to be an inordinate amount of painkillers, forgetting for a moment that she wasn't alone and that she shouldn't have addressed the district ruler by how she referred to her mentally out loud. _Oh god…_

She moved her right hand up against her forehead, partially to shield her eyes from the sun and partially to hide the expression on her face. The discolouring of bruises on her wrist might've given her pause on any other day, but there were too many things crowding in her mind at the moment for her to care. "What… Why are you here?" she asked, throat feeling like sandpaper. She wanted to ask where Umi and Maki were, but Eli sensed that Toujou probably wouldn't give her the answer.

Squinting in the brightness, she made out the figure of the violet-haired woman standing by the window several feet away. If Toujou was offended by her lack of formality, she didn't show it. "Because I heard what happened last night," she replied. Her voice was matter-of-fact, but Eli thought she could hear a slight tremor in it.

If truth was told, she barely remembered what had happened after she'd heard Maki's voice by the bedroom door the previous night. Pulling the memories out of that particular void was about as effective as trying to hold onto water in her bare hands and she gave up shortly afterwards. The only thing she remembered with absolute certainty was the fact that someone had waited until she was alone in the apartment before trying to kill her. Even in her current state, she had a pretty good idea of why someone might've wanted to get her out of the way.

The thought crossed her mind briefly. _Is_ that _why she's here…?_

When Eli didn't reply to her statement, Toujou took a few steps closer to her, mercifully blocking out most of the sun streaming through the window with her silhouette. "How are you feeling?" There was genuine concern in her voice, along with something else.

Eli choked down a dry laugh, mostly because she didn't think her side could handle it. _Like shit_ was the answer she wanted to give, but she reminded herself that she'd probably crossed some sort of line already by calling Toujou by her surname only and didn't need to cross another. "I'll live."

"From what I heard, you almost didn't," Toujou said quietly, turning her head to look out the window instead. "I… shouldn't have let this happen."

She had finally pinpointed the emotion lurking behind the other woman's words—it was regret.

"Except… it has nothing to do with you," Eli murmured, trying to give her head a shake to dislodge the cotton balls stuck at the edges of her consciousness. "I made my own choice." _I've… been prepared for this possibility from the start._

It was a thought that struck her with alarming clarity.

"That isn't what I'm talking about."

Too exhausted to play along with Toujou's usual games today, Eli lowered her hand from her face at last. "So… what _are_ you talking about, then?"

Toujou half-turned her head. "I realized how they figured out who you were on my way here," she said, her voice devoid of its usual placidity. "Neither of us were careless enough to leave something they could track behind, but I forgot about your voice."

Blinking a few times in an attempt to clear the haziness in the corners of her vision, it took her a few moments to process that statement. "What?"

"Your voice," the violet-haired woman repeated. "You shouted at me to move during that conference with President Tenjoin."

Suddenly, Eli half-realized, half-remembered what she was talking about.

"I didn't realize that that was enough for them to identify you," Toujou continued. There was a pause, filled only with the sound of a machine beeping in the background. "I'm sorry."

Not for the first time around the woman in front of her, Eli realized that she was rendered speechless. _How am I supposed to respond to that? What… does she want me to say? Should I not have done it?_

It was a miracle she was putting coherent thoughts together at all, let alone trying to piece together what Toujou was trying to say to her in her usual perplexing manner.

Minutes ticked by between them in silence, stretching into moments that neither of them were counting anymore.

"You know," the other woman began gently, "I never asked you why you chose to save me. Your friends have never given me the impression that they like—or even approve—of me. When we first met, I assumed you were the same. So… why did you make the decision that you did?"

Shifting her weight ever so slightly, gingerly easing the pressure off the sharp pain in her back, Eli rested her cheek against the pillow. There was only one answer, and she knew she had to say it whether she would've preferred to keep it to herself or not. She wasn't sure whether she was thrown more by the amount of drugs in her system, or the vulnerability she was hearing from the one person in the city who she would've assumed would never show it—especially in front of someone else.

"It was the right thing to do," she said quietly against the starchy material of the pillowcase. "That's it."

"Really?"

Eli nodded, before she remembered that Toujou probably wasn't looking at her. "You… don't sound like you believe me."

It was awhile before the district ruler replied. "Because… I've never met someone who would do something like that without asking for anything in return. Nobody that I know personally— _knew_ " she corrected herself, "would've done what you did without demanding repayment."

She turned her head back over her shoulder to find that Toujou had also turned around. The expression in her green eyes was unreadable as their gazes met.

"What… is the point of doing something just so you can ask for something in return?" Eli asked her. "You might as well not do it at all in the first place. If you're going to help someone, what you might get back should never be what you're thinking about first… if you're thinking about it at all. If you're going to do something for someone, you should mean it."

Toujou gave her a sad half-smile, only an echo of the one she was used to seeing. "What you're saying isn't making my case any better, you know. The fact still remains that they found out who you were because you saved me. You might have survived this time, but... they know who you are now."

They had finally arrived at the topic of the conversation that Eli had somehow been anticipating, though she had no idea how she had known it would be brought up.

"Are you telling me you regret everything, then?" she asked. "Regardless of who you hired… you _knew_ that this was a possibility." Irritation—partially due to pain, and partially due to the fact that the woman in front of her might've been a younger version of herself when she still thought it was possible to survive that way—lent strength into her next words. "In the grand scheme of things, what do you think is worth more? This city and everyone who lives in it, or the life of one person?"

The almost tangible answer hung between them and Eli knew they both knew what it was—it was just that neither of them wanted to say it, as though acknowledging it out loud would somehow increase its gravity.

Worn out by the simple effort of speaking more than two sentences in a row, she paused before continuing in a more subdued voice. "You shouldn't… be asking yourself if you regret it, because you had to choose someone. The choice was mine, so the only person that you could ask that question to is me." A painful cough seized her chest, and she winced. "And before you do," she panted softly for breath, her lungs forcing the rest of her words to come out barely louder than a whisper, "the answer is no. I don't. I thought… No, I _know_ that you care about this city—enough to sacrifice everything that you were raised for to see it rebuilt. Don't… throw that away because of one person."

 _I mean it. Everything. From not regretting anything that's happened up until this point, to what I said. I walked into this hoping against all the odds that I'd somehow find Alisa at the end of it._

 _Not only did I find her, I stumbled across something else—something that somehow connected me to someone has both the will and the power to create the change I know I wanted to see. How… could this_ not _be worth it?_

Eli let her eyes close for several moments, feeling too lightheaded to keep them open. She wasn't sure where the source of her exhaustion was coming from—the increasing pain in her side or the tumultuous swell of emotion that had taken over her chest. Somehow, she felt afraid to open her eyes again, unsure of how the violet-haired woman would react to her words. Opening them felt like drawing back the curtain on the stage; she hadn't lost nearly enough blood to face the district ruler in front of her, whose reception to her monologue had yet to be seen, and the streets of Tokyo beyond, where she now knew a much darker force lay lying in wait.

Silence wrapped around them, the absence of sound rushing in to fill the space between them.

It was a long time before either of them spoke again.

A gentle, tentative touch brushed against the fingertips of her right hand. Blinking her eyes open in surprise, startled at the sudden, unexpected contact, the warmth of the hand holding hers barely registered next to her pounding heartbeat as Toujou met and held her gaze.

The other woman gave her hand a gentle squeeze, breaking the silence at last. "You know… I'm glad that we met."

The corner of her mouth twitched into a smile. "So am I," Eli replied softly.

Letting go after a few moments, Toujou straightened up and put her gloves back on, returning the smile with one of her own. "Then I suppose it's time that I return to the district building. I have a few things I need to – ah, _sort out_."

The acknowledgment of what she had said earlier caused her to press her lips together, her smile widening by the slightest of margins. "Good."

The violet-haired woman took a few steps towards the door before she paused. "But before I go, there's one more thing I'd like to discuss with you."

Eli glanced over at her, though heaviness was beginning to tug at her eyelids. "What is it?"

"I think it's about time we dropped the formalities between us, don't you? I call you by your first name, so it's only fair that you should be able to call me by mine. What do you think?"

Even in her current state, Eli could understand the implications carried underneath the simple request. _I…_ _What?_ She tried to discern further than that, but the rest of her thoughts were smoldered underneath a blanket of fatigue.

Laughing softly at her stunned silence, Toujou rearranged her single braid of hair as she went to let herself out. "Why don't you think about it?" she asked serenely, lightly tossing the words over her shoulder as though it was the simplest question in the world, before closing the door behind her with a soft snap.

* * *

Maki wrenched open the door to her laboratory to find that Umi was already sitting by one of the steel gurneys that she used as a table. The knife that she'd sent her blue-haired friend to fetch was lying on top of it in a specimen bag, winking innocently at her under the bright lamps overhead.

Umi looked up the moment she let herself in. "Did you get it?" she asked.

Nodding, Maki strode over to her computer, turning it on. She fished the small OSD out of her pocket, holding it up. "And it better work," she muttered darkly under her breath.

While her computer was booting up, she snapped on a pair of latex gloves before opening the clear plastic bag. Umi hovered anxiously at her shoulder, watching her work.

The blood on the blade of the knife had long dried, so Maki took a small knife, carefully shaving off the dark brown flakes into a petri dish. _Every citizen in this city was DNA profiled. If he lives in Tokyo, it'll be pretty obvious pretty soon who he is._

Opening up the program that she'd been given to perform autopsies on her computer, she ran the sample through the usual tests. Two distinct DNA profiles appeared once the initial analyses was done, but that particular fact did not surprise her, given where the knife had ended up.

Plugging in the OSD that Toujou's secretary had given her, the citizen database was open before her within seconds. She clicked into the profiling system she wanted, before importing the data from her earlier tests.

Umi gripped the back of her chair with a hand as she set the search parameters, the machine humming as it worked. Maki could feel her heartbeat elevating slightly as she waited for the program to finish its match.

The first name that popped up on her screen was Ayase Eli. She skipped it, flicking her mouse onto the next screen.

The fingers of her left hand tightened against the keyboard when the next profile loaded. There was no one hundred percent match in Tokyo's database, but something blinked underneath the red characters letting her know there was no match.

Maki scrolled down, skimming through the computer's warning that the profile it had used to provide a match was taken from an outdated hospital record. Ignoring its advice that she obtain a more recent sample, she paused when a name finally appeared on her screen, citing an approximate sixty-five percent match with the businessman Imori Shinn.

There was a sharp intake of breath behind her from Umi.

She hit print on the screen, snatching the piece of paper that the printer spat out moments later. "I think Toujou's going to be very interested in this information, don't you, Umi?" she snarled quietly.

 _I knew it. Of course it had to be one of them._


	19. Burn

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** Burn - Flow

* * *

 _"Tokyo's citizens aren't the only people who've changed over the past eight years. The city not only used to be home to some thirty odd million people, but it was also a centre for international trade and tourism._

 _All of that changed in October 2022._

 _My grandmother, at least, is a die-hard Russian nationalist. She and my grandfather own a large house in the suburbs of Moscow next to the river, and I used to spend every summer there with my little sister. Every autumn, without fail, they would try to convince me to stay. I can't claim that it didn't tempt me. It did, but life in Tokyo was adventure and seeing something new and wondrous every few days. It had its terrifying moments—such as my fear of getting lost after it was dark when I was younger—but… it was worth it._

 _Anyways, I haven't heard from my grandparents in nearly a decade. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given the world and its restrictions that we live in. After all, most heads of state aren't concerned about recreating what we had before Edenra devastated the world. It's about guarding their own stick in the mud and wondering not how to rebuild the cities we have left, but how to emerge as a new world leader in a future that only they can see." —Ayase Eli_

* * *

On the third evening after she'd completed the analysis on the knife, Maki finally ran into the district ruler she'd been itching to see for the past seventy-two hours. The crumpled piece of paper that held its results was still in her pocket, already worn from being carried around and scrunched unconsciously at occasional intervals.

She had wanted to storm to the district building the moment she'd printed it out, but Umi had stopped her, citing that she was unlikely to actually get an audience with Toujou and that her best chance to speak to the head of state in relative privacy would be whenever she came to the hospital next. Grudgingly, Maki knew she'd been right, although it didn't do much to curb her temper over the whole situation.

"I need to talk to you," she announced as she strode through the door of the hospital room and spotted a head of long violet hair standing by the corner.

Toujou half-turned, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as though she was amused. "Oh? What would you like to talk about, Nishikino-san?"

Maki bit back the words she would've liked to say, her temper already worn short by a certain black-haired woman that she'd had the misfortune of attending to for over an hour earlier that evening. She pulled the page out of her pocket and smoothed it out in front of her on a bedside table, flattening its creases. "This. I finished my analysis on that knife."

Both Toujou and Eli regarded her in a serious sort of way. There was determined anticipation in Eli's blue gaze, but she couldn't read Toujou's emerald one beyond the expectancy in it. "And what did you find, Nishikino-san?" Toujou asked her delicately.

Maki thrust the piece of paper at her. "Look for yourself."

She felt the fingers of her other hand curl into a fist as the other woman took the piece of paper from her, quickly scanning through the results, expression darkening by the slightest margin as she reached the bottom of the page before passing it to Eli.

"You're sure you performed this analysis correctly, I take it?" The tone of the district ruler's voice was no longer amused as she turned back to face her.

"Of course I did," Maki said tersely, reaching over after a few moments to take the page back from Eli before handing it to her again.

Toujou folded the piece of paper in half, slipping it into the pocket of her dress jacket. "Then you can rest assured that this information will be passed onto the right people."

Maki stared at her. " _What_? You're not going to order an investigation _now_?"

"Oh, I'd like to," Toujou returned, "but that's not always possible. We don't need a repeat of what happened last time, now do we?"

"You're the ruler of this district," Maki argued back. "Surely you have some power over what goes on here and what doesn't."

Toujou gave her a dry smile. "If that was the case, Nishikino-san, we wouldn't be here. No, we have all the necessary proof that we need to prove that this man is related to these incidents. However… I think even _you_ can agree that rushing in too hastily might cause unnecessary complications."

There was a warning look in her verdant gaze, and Maki caught onto it almost immediately—though she had done her best to ensure that what they were saying at the moment couldn't be overheard, she understood that there were things that they could not discuss out loud. Imori's name was one of them.

There was a brief pause before the violet-haired woman continued. "I'll have someone I trust to follow up on this information, though it may take him some time to get back to me. Unfortunately, he can't get things done as fast as you can, Eli."

Maki felt the familiar twinge of anger when Toujou referred to Eli by her first name, and as always, she was surprised when Eli didn't react as she normally would've done—Maki hadn't forgotten her friend's reaction the first time they'd met Satou Fubuki when the two of them had gone looking for Umi in the outskirts of the city.

"You should let me do it, then," Eli said, her cerulean gaze resolute.

"No," Maki refuted instantly. "Until you can actually get out of this bed on your own, I don't want to see you going anywhere near a computer. I still haven't chewed you out for nearly getting yourself killed, by the way."

Toujou chuckled as Eli scowled at her.

"Well, I suppose it's time I took my leave," the district ruler said serenely. "It seems like I have a few important calls to make tonight." Straightening out her dress, she let herself out of the room, accompanied by her pair of security guards.

Maki glared after her. "Doesn't even thank me," she muttered under her breath, before turning her attention back to Eli. "What the hell does she even want, anyways?" she asked, trying to keep the curiousity out of her disgusted tone.

"To apologize, mostly," Eli replied. There was a slight tone of hesitancy in her voice, and Maki knew her blonde friend well enough to know that she wasn't telling the complete truth.

She snorted. "Whatever. I don't care. What you two do on your own time doesn't interest me. What I _do_ want you to remember is that there's no way in hell you're going to put your life on the line for something this stupid ever again."

Eli was silent for a few heartbeats. "So, you don't think it was worth it?" she eventually asked.

"No," Maki growled. "Are you trying to say that it _was_? Eli, name _one_ thing that you think you actually got out of this. Well?" she demanded.

Maki studied Eli's expression closely as she hesitated. "I was able to speak to Alisa again," Eli ventured at last. "I think that's worth it."

She quashed the familiar pang of pain whenever the younger Ayase was brought up in conversation, swallowing it under a familiar flare of irritation. "It's not like she was exactly friendly that first night though, was she? You—" Maki cut herself off before she said what was on her mind.

However, her rare moment of restraint was for naught, because when she caught Eli's eye, the intensity in her friend's blue gaze told her the blonde knew exactly what she had wanted to say.

"I know that," Eli replied, the tone of her voice weighed down by the memory. "But still… it worked out, didn't it? Better than I could've hoped for at the time." She glanced over at the darkness outside the window. "I know you and Umi probably think that it was a stupid decision for me to make. And maybe you're right," she acquiesced, "but as stupid as it might be, the chance to make that happen was one of the only things left in this world I'd be willing to risk my life for. Can you accept that?"

Unable to argue with the sincerity behind Eli's words, Maki found that there was absolutely nothing that she could say that wouldn't somehow discount her feelings. _I guess I'd feel the same way if someone tried to tell me that my research isn't worth it—because I know it is._ She breathed in before letting it out slowly. "Fine. Whatever. Just… keep yourself out of trouble in the future," she muttered, feeling her neck growing hot.

The ghost of a smile quirked at the corner of Eli's mouth. "Believe it or not, Maki, I was trying to."

"Yeah, yeah… I know you've already listened to Umi's lecture, so I guess I'll let you off light today. Work on getting your red blood cell count and GFR up instead of entertaining Toujou, will you?"

Eli raised an eyebrow at her. "Who got on your nerves today? It sure wasn't Toujou, because you were like this before you even spoke a word to her."

The honest answer was _Yazawa Nico_ , but Maki would rather stop her blonde friend from bleeding out again than admit it in front of her. "Patients," she ground out. "What else?"

"Uh huh." Eli crossed her arms over her chest, wincing slightly at the motion.

"Watch the IV. I don't want to have to put it back in your hand if you pull it out," Maki snapped at her.

Unfazed, Eli regarded her in the same way that Kousaka Honoka had when she'd gone to the bar with her; unfortunately, Eli knew her far better than the orange-haired lab technician, and Maki knew the standoffish answer wouldn't work nearly as well on her as it had on Honoka.

The blonde shook her head. "You're insufferable."

"Look who's talking. Don't forget that I saved your life a few nights ago," she retorted. "Look, Eli, I know you really want to pick apart why I hate Toujou with a passion because it's obvious you have a different opinion of her, but at least do it when you can stand up straight to look me in the eye without hurting yourself in the process. Why don't you worry about getting yourself discharged first, and then we can talk about why I can't stand her so much?"

Eli snorted at the word _her_ , and Maki grimaced, knowing that she had accidentally let the intonation on the one-syllable word slip. The slight change in articulation might've escaped Umi's notice, but Eli was more perceptive than that, especially when her attention wasn't otherwise occupied by some piece of technology.

"Sure." The false amicability could've been dripping from her words. "Let me pencil that in."

"Shut up and take your painkillers," Maki said irritably, goaded past staying and tossing the words over her shoulder as she made her way to the door before Eli could dissect her speech further. "Umi said she'll come see you tomorrow morning before she has to go hunting. At least _try_ to get some sleep tonight instead of staying awake all night. I heard sleep helps you heal faster."

She slammed the door shut on Eli's soft laughter.

* * *

Maki's foul mood did not improve once she sat down in front of her newly-arrived batch of samples. Irritated that it had taken Honoka so long to fill out her order, she reached into the bottom of the cardboard box that she'd picked up from her office before heading back to her lab.

Her fingers brushed an aerosol can—an item she _did not_ want—and she cursed out loud. "Why is that she can't get _anything_ right?" she snarled to no one in particular; apart from herself, her lab was deserted.

She pulled it out of the box furiously, reading the label on it. Maki distinctly remembered asking for liquefied—not aerosolized—Namidite, but it was clear that Honoka obviously hadn't been very careful when she'd checked the order. _Of course there had to be something wrong with the order. It wouldn't be Honoka's work without a mistake._

Angrily slamming the aerosol can down on her spare gurney, Maki pulled the rest of her samples towards her, counting them under her breath and making sure that the Namidite was the only mistake Honoka had made. When she had double-checked everything else, she sat back down on her chair with a sigh.

 _At least it was only_ one _mistake._

Still, she needed the liquidized Namidite if she wanted to continue with what she was doing last time, although Maki supposed that it wouldn't hurt to get the samples she _had_ received ready for when the right supplies arrived at last. _No thanks to Honoka, of course._

Carefully, she placed her newest set of samples in individualized petri dishes and transferred them one by one into the incubators that lined the back wall of the lab. Though it was tedious work, at least it required some modicum of concentration that didn't allow for her to think about just how many things could go wrong in one day.

Just when she was about to finish, Maki tripped over the leg of her rolling chair and she brought her hand down on the surface of the gurney to steady herself. Unfortunately for her, the palm of her hand landed on the nozzle of the aerosol can, and within seconds, she found herself surrounded by a thick haze of aerosolized Namidite.

Coughing, she waved her other hand frantically to clear the air around her, only to realize that she had left the lids of the petri dishes off of last few Ceresis samples. Swearing furiously under her breath, she strode back to her work station to inspect the extent of the damage she'd done.

 _Now I'll need more. Can this day get any worse?_

To her utter surprise, when she inspected what remained of the samples, Maki found that the Ceresis tissue in the petri dishes were already dying, turning a familiar ash grey. Intrigued, she plucked a scalpel from one of her many beakers that held her instruments and carefully dissected one of the samples underneath a lab lamp.

Underneath the skin tissue, she found the same grey consistency of dead and dying cells—a result that she had come nowhere close to achieving with her other concentrations of liquid Namidite.

She swiped the aerosol bottle off the second gurney where she'd left it, reading its label again carefully. The beginnings of an idea began to form in her head as she reached hastily for her cell phone, picking a number out of its contact list, all traces of tiredness gone from the edges of her consciousness as she held it up to her ear.

The person on the other end of the line picked up after a few rings.

"Maki-chan?" Honoka yawned into her ear sleepily. "What do you want from me _now_?"

"Honoka," she said urgently into the phone, completely forgetting to be short with the orange-haired lab technician while her mind was racing at a hundred miles an hour. "How many of those aerosol bottles of Namidite can you get me?"

* * *

Umi gripped her phone tightly in one hand as she swept dark blue strands of hair off her forehead. Though it was close to September, the warm summer weather persisted as it did every year, making the long trek back from Tokyo's outer districts an uncomfortably sticky one.

Normally, she would have taken a little more time in returning to the city after her hunt had it not been for the text she had received that morning from Eli, whose restless frustration with the hospital ward had consistently increased in direct proportion to her improving health. The text had simply said that there was something important she wanted to talk about, but Umi couldn't imagine that Maki had let the blonde anywhere near a computer to figure anything out. _What could she possibly have to discuss?_

Feeling conspicuously contaminated in contrast to the sterile white walls of the hospital, she had her answer as soon as she walked in through the door of the hospital room.

Maki was leaning against the window, arms crossed over her chest and wearing a disgruntled expression on her face. It was not difficult to see why, because the tall, slender form of Tokyo's district ruler took up the opposite end of the bedside table. The bed itself was empty, as Eli was curled up on one of the chairs next to the window and absentmindedly picking at the tape of her saline lock on the back of her left hand. All three of them looked up the moment Umi entered the room, as though she was late for an important meeting she had just gotten the memo to.

Maki uncrossed her arms as she pushed herself off the wall. "Now that she's here, I'm sure you can start sharing," she said impatiently.

Instantly feeling flustered—as though she had been volunteered to be put on the spot—Umi bowed hastily before she set her bow and arrows down on an unoccupied chair.

Toujou, however, seemed unconcerned by the nervous energy around her and calmly walked over to the window, gloved hands clasped behind her back. "The evidence you provided me last time has been thoroughly investigated," she began, her tone uncharacteristically serious. She paused, gaze fixed on the landscape outside the window. "My chief of security agrees with you, Nishikino-san, that an investigation is necessary."

There was a pause that no one saw the need to immediately fill.

"Then… will he be sending out another public notice?" Umi ventured, more than just a little intimidated by the mere presence of the district ruler and feeling self-conscious to be addressing her directly.

Toujou half-turned. "No. That would give him the notice that he needs to escape the district. I was willing to risk it on someone like Izayoi. I'm not willing to take that kind of risk for this."

Whatever else she thought about the head of the district, Umi could admire her shrewdness. Though there was still the chance of them being overhead, nothing that had come out of Toujou's mouth was immediately identifiable as sensitive information. It would take more than a few lucky guesses to pinpoint the exact subject of their discussion, and by then, it would likely be too late for an interested party to do something about it.

"But sadly, that isn't the point of this conversation," Toujou continued, meeting Umi's gaze directly. "I'm here because my chief of security was quite impressed with your skills last time, Sonoda-san. He'd like to offer you a position on his task force this time… if you're interested, that is."

" _What_?" Maki instantly sputtered, taking a few steps forward in indignation. "You haven't even told her what he's planning on doing, and you're here to ask her for her help?"

Toujou ignored her, and Umi caught Eli's gaze over Maki's shoulder. It was clear that Eli, at least, had had this particular discussion already with Toujou behind the redhead's back. Her cerulean gaze was composed, though Umi could read the troubled question lurking in its depths.

"Oh Nishikino-san, I'm not here to ask you about your opinion in regards to what I'm doing," the head of state replied lightly, a hint of her usual nonchalant tone creeping back into her tone as refocused her attention on Umi. "I only want to know if you're interested, Sonoda-san."

Umi studied her expression. The intensity in the violet-haired woman's eyes did not match the serenity in her tone at all. Somehow, it echoed the determination that had crept up on her ever since Toujou had mentioned her chief of security. She had known where this conversation was going and why Eli had said that there was something they needed to discuss with her.

"Yes," she said steadily, without hesitation.

Toujou swept past her on the way to the exit, beckoning to her security guards as she went. "Good. Meet him in front of the hospital tomorrow afternoon at 1730." Umi watched one of them closed the door behind her as she left.

It was quiet for a few minutes.

"You're really going?" Maki asked her from the window in a low voice at last.

"Yes," Umi repeated without turning around. A familiar sort of icy calm was spreading through her limbs; she might have been terrible at navigating through mundane, everyday life events—such as wedding planning with her fiancée—but Umi knew without a doubt that fighting was something that she knew how to do. One day, she would hang up her bow for Kotori's sake, but at the moment, that day did not seem to be remotely close. _If anything, given what has happened in the last few weeks, that day might never come._

There was the _thump_ of someone sitting down on a bed behind her. "What the hell is this? I don't get it," Maki snapped. "She comes along and refuses to tell any of us what's going on like usual, then says, 'Umi, I just want to know if you'd like to tag along.' Who does that? I'm sure she has a million other people she could probably ask, so why us?"

Umi turned to find the redhead angrily twisting the hem of Eli's sheets in her fingers, fraying the fabric underneath them. "The choice to go is mine. You know that, do you not?"

"Sure I do. I know you well enough to know that you'd say yes," Maki retorted. "But this is another case of her asking people she shouldn't be for _help_ , and I thought we all agreed that people who ' _help_ ' her don't reap the benefits that they should." She swivelled her head around to glare at Eli.

The blonde uncrossed her legs from underneath her, rearranging the blanket on her lap so she could sit up straighter. "She asked me if Umi would be interested. I told her probably, but she wanted to ask her herself." Eli raised her head slightly to look at her in the eye. "But… you know there're risks involved, right? I'm not allowed to be there right now, so if you do go, you'll have to be on your own."

"That's fine," Umi responded. She turned to Maki. "We also agreed that it was time to stop letting things happen to us, and to start taking our own initiatives. Of course there are risks involved—someone has already tried to kill one of us. We said that we wouldn't let it happen again, so this is a good place to start."

There was no further argument to her words as Umi picked up her bow again and made her way to the door. "I need to tell Kotori where I'm going tomorrow."

* * *

Exiting the taxi, Umi stared up at the two towers silhouetted against the late summer skyline. Even though she was currently standing in the heart of downtown Tokyo, it was as though the sounds of the city had been turned off, and the scarlet tint of sunset made the atmosphere around her more ominous than it had to be.

The words of Toujou's chief of security rang in her ears as Umi cautiously made her way forward. _"Remember, even though he's probably not expecting us, there are no doubts that he'll likely have hired some private military company to guard him. Since you prefer to work alone, I want you to arrive half an hour after we do and make your way up the second tower after the first team I send in. We'll be in radio contact."_

The gates that led to the two towers that Imori owned were unlocked, as she had been told they would be. She glanced upward as she silently crept forward to the entrance of the second tower, the corner of her mouth twitching in slight disgust. Most businessmen who wanted to show off their status struggled to rent a single floor of an office building in downtown Tokyo, let alone an entire building. Imori Shinn was wealthy enough to own two, connected on the thirtieth floor by an overhead bridge. _How many people could this have saved during Bloody Valentine?_ she wondered.

There was no time for her to dwell on that particular errant thought as she approached the glass doors of the entrance. The lights were still on in the entrance foyer, flickering senselessly as though someone had tried to shoot them out.

Quietly making her way up to it, bow ready and drawn, Umi stepped over the body of a dead merc. The room on her left was empty apart from a reception area and some chairs.

Ducking down behind a row of potted plants, she scanned the area immediately in front of her. The way forward through the foyer to the stairs at the back was blocked by a thick plane of glass—she would have to wrap around the hallway to the side to make it to the stairs that led to the upper level. It was quiet except for the distant hum of alarms coming from the building across the street, though Umi did not expect it to stay that way for long.

The small hallway on her right was similarly empty, save for the lone body at the next doorway. As she made her way up to it, she had to swallow her anger. The man was dressed in what was obviously a janitor's outfit, and it was clear that he had died trying to open the door to escape. _You hire mercs and tell them to kill anyone that moves—even the innocent workers who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time._

Carefully, Umi moved his body to the side before palming the door control with one hand, wincing as it opened with a slight whine. No one was waiting to greet her on the other side, however, as she made sure her earpiece was still in. There was no Eli this time to keep an eye and ear out for her—something that she could only now fully appreciate on her previous excursions—but Toujou's chief of security had assured her that any sounds that the tiny mic picked up would be broadcast back to the district's situation room.

The lights were off in the next hallway, the only source of illumination coming from the sunset filtering through the windows, casting an eerie red glow on her surroundings. Back against the wall as she crept forward, Umi tensed when she heard voices up ahead.

"Got lucky I slipped past the security force. Time to cut ties with him, I suppose, because I didn't sign up to get prosecuted by the government."

"Yup," a second voice agreed. "Time to get out of here before things get stickier than they already are. Imori's screwed, even if he doesn't know it yet. No need for us to get caught in the crossfire."

Her warning shot caught one of the men in the shoulder as they approached the doorway. Letting out a yell, he dropped his gun as she rounded the corner, bow already reloaded.

His friend scrambled backwards in shock, fumbling for his weapon in his belt, casting a panicked look in her direction as Umi approached the pair of them. "Look, lady," he stammered, "we're leaving, okay? We're not here to throw away our lives for no reason!"

She narrowed her eyes at them, kicking away the gun at her feet as she approached them. "Do you really expect me to believe that?" she asked.

"No, but listen," one of them pleaded. "You're with the government, right? We'll tell you how to get up the tower without running into most of the mercs that are still around if you let us walk away," he bargained.

Umi contemplated the words for a few heartbeats. "Give me that gun, and you have yourself a deal."

The two men looked at each other for a moment before the first one pulled the shotgun out of its holster on his belt and handed it to her.

The second pointed in the direction to her left. "If you get past the door in the next corridor, there's an entrance to a catwalk that goes up to the service elevators. The last government company went up the main elevator, but they'll have cut the power to that to try to trap them. There'll be more mercs waiting for you if you try to go up that way too, so if you go around in the service elevators, you've got a chance of sneaking around them."

She regarded the two men carefully, watching their body language for the cover of a lie. Umi waited for the telltale signs—the shifting eyes, the nervous hands—that she had learned after years of dealing with bounty hunters and mercenaries alike. Finding none, she decided that he was telling the truth… or at least, he thought he was.

She jerked her head in the direction that she had come from, and Umi did not turn back until the pair had disappeared from sight, their footsteps echoing loudly in the deserted hallway. She tossed the shotgun into a corner of the room before moving on.

Creeping forward, carefully stepping around debris from smashed crates and broken glass, she peered around the next bend of hallway before stepping into it. Thankful for the plush carpet that absorbed the sound of her footsteps, she met no resistance until she reached the room just before the way up.

There was a single mercenary looting the dead bodies of both soldiers and mercs alike, bending over the corpses to rifle through their pockets. Planting her feet in the carpet, Umi drew her bow. Unfortunately for her, the moment she chose to fire was the moment he bent down to look through another body.

Cursing silently in her head, Umi rolled forward to dodge the pistol shots he returned at her as she ducked behind a couch. Staying in a crouching position, she reloaded her bow quickly as she counted the approaching footsteps, meeting the barrel of his weapon with a drawn arrow as she released the string, the shot catching him in the neck at point-blank range as he stumbled backwards, away from her.

On any other day, she might have felt remorse for his meaningless death, but tonight, she did not have time to mourn mercs who were either too stupid to realize what was going on, or too greedy to care.

Casting a glance at the bodies lying beyond the office area, noting the different uniforms, she hit the door control to the next landing. A ramp loomed in front of her as she climbed upwards rapidly, making sure the door had closed behind her before opening the next.

Voices immediately greeted her as she hid in the shadows of the open area.

"Hey—I think they went through here," a man's voice echoed from somewhere across the room.

A woman's voice answered him. "Well, go get them then."

"You go," he replied.

"Get your ass in there," the woman snapped back. "Imori's not paying you to stand around. They're having enough trouble over there in the first tower already. You want to be the one to tell him we let another company slip through?"

There was a pause as Umi took the opportunity to tiptoe forward, straining to see in the half-light and muscles tense for any sign of movement in front of her. Her fingers tightened around the bow in her hands.

"Fine…" the first voice replied at last. There was the sound of boots on linoleum as he strode forward. "But I…"

Umi did not get to hear his counterargument, because the sound of several shots followed him almost immediately, and she heard the _thump_ of a body falling to the floor. Swallowing her disgust, she dashed across the open area that led to the next hallway, surprising the female merc as she spun around, her SMG still drawn from shooting her squad mate.

She buried an arrow into the woman's back without hesitation, knowing that she had shot her ally for nothing apart from personal spite before she moved forward, dropping behind another row of potted plants as a third merc closed in on her location, drawn by the sound of gunfire and the woman's cry.

Inching forward on her knees, Umi crept around the base of the planter until the merc's back was facing her as he discovered the bodies of his company. Scrambling up, she drew her bow the moment he turned around at the soft sound of scuffling against the tiles, releasing the string of her bow the same moment he fired at her.

The shot grazed her shoulder before she had the time to duck completely out of the way as her arrow pierced the merc's forehead. Swiping her free hand across the cut, she assessed it quickly. It was bleeding, but it wasn't deep enough to seriously hamper any movement of her arm. She ripped off a piece of her sleeve to tie around it, knowing she did not want to leave a blood trail for anyone that was still lingering on the floor for her to follow.

Umi approached the landing next to the service elevator the merc had told her about cautiously. She caught sight of two shadows standing guard on each side of the elevator doors, guns at the ready. There were more bodies littered around the area, and a clammy salamander of unease wrapped its sticky fingers around her heart. _How much money—and lives—is this man planning to throw away for the sake of his own?_ She had a feeling she was about to find out very soon.

She slowly inched into position behind a low railing, testing her injured shoulder to see if it would still hold her bow's weight and feeling reassured when it did. She loaded another arrow into her bow before she stood up, picking off the man closest to her side of the room before he had seen what had hit him.

His partner let out a yell of shock and anger as he fired a round of bullets in her general direction, unable to see her clearly in the dark after the power had been cut to the lights.

He lurched in her direction as he put away his empty pistol, trading it in favour for his shotgun. "I know you're there," he called out, voice echoing in the otherwise silent room.

Umi removed another arrow from her quiver with her other hand and loaded it into her bow as he approached her position slowly. "Get out here before I have to shoot you," the man ordered into the darkness.

 _Not likely._ She dropped into a half crouch as his footsteps neared her, knowing that it would put her at a disadvantage if she wanted to shoot him with an arrow, but she was counting on him misjudging her height and actual position.

The moment he turned the corner to the spot where she was hiding, she darted forward as he unloaded a shell at the spot where her chest and shoulders would have been. Scrambling into a standing position, her arrow buried itself into his diaphragm as he dropped the gun, fingers scrabbling at his chest wound and trying to pull out the arrow impaled in it before his fingers went slack.

Umi left him behind as she strode up to the service elevator, wishing for perhaps the umpteenth time since she had entered the building that Eli was there to tell her what lay beyond it. Then, she reminded herself that it was precisely because Eli was _not_ with her at the moment that she was here to begin with.

She hit the elevator control before a thought struck her. _I'm… a little exposed out here, especially if there is someone coming down that elevator._ Nervous energy seized her limbs as Umi looked around for a suitable place to conceal herself as the floors began ticking down on the display above the elevator door.

She spotted a large desk towards the back corner on the opposite side of the room that she had entered from. Using her good arm to vault over it, she pressed one knee into the tiled floor as she readied her bow in her hands.

A feminine, robotic voice issued out of the elevator door. _"Mezzanine. Have a pleasant stay."_

There was the sound of soft footsteps exiting the elevator and Umi caught the sight of silver hair tucked beneath a visor as she peered over the desktop. Her heart suddenly pounding against her sternum, she realized who she was looking at.

"More of you?" The man's voice was quiet, but impossibly cold as he paused at the entrance to the elevator. "I thought I dealt with you all."

Umi felt her fingers tighten against her bowstring as she tried to come up with a plan. She had known that it was a possibility that she would run into him here—had even anticipated meeting the man at last, knowing the full gravity of the crimes that he had committed, but furthermore, knowing that he would have killed Eli without any hesitation had Maki not come home at the time that she had.

She heard the safety being released on his gun.

If he was just another merc, then she would have felt safe trading shots with him from where she was currently hiding, but Umi had seen the man's aim for herself. _No, I have to think of a different strategy._ She knew the man was an assassin, which meant that he was trained in stealth and skill and not extended fights, but brute strength was not one of her fortes either.

The glint of silver hair registered in her peripheral vision as the man calmly walked over to the entrance to the elevator lobby, clearly expecting her to have hidden there. She heard his soft snort of contempt when he found the side of the room to be empty.

Cold sweat broke out over her skin when Umi realized she did not have much time left to think of something. At the last moment, she remembered the knife in her belt. The chances of her plan working were slim, but she was running out of options faster than she was running out of time.

Muscles tense in anticipatory preparation, she worked the knife out of her belt soundlessly with one hand as the man neared her hiding spot, the undisturbed pace at which he approached grating against her nerves until he was only a few feet away. Umi held her breath as he drew closer to her—the moment he was within her reach, she lunged forward, stabbing the knife in her left hand into his leg before he pinpointed her position exactly and dodging out of the way as he instantly fired reactively.

Scrambling into a standing position, she dashed for the opposite side of the room, using the crates and scattered pieces of furniture for cover as he fired shot after shot at her. One of them clipped the side of her head, but only caught a lock of dark blue hair.

 _Keep him at a distance._

The pistol in his hand was much less deadly than the sniper rifle she had seen him use, but his aim was still as accurate as it had been from the rooftop. Even with her reacting the moment she saw the shot, she barely made it out of the way before the bullets hit her.

Umi returned a few shots from her bow over her shoulder, but she could not aim and dodge at the same time. In her mind, she knew what he was doing. _He knows I can't afford to trade shots with him—and that I'll get tired eventually._ Her muscles ached from her continued efforts to keep an ample amount of distance between them so that he could not shoot her point-blank. She had to come up with a new strategy—and fast.

Something caught the corner of her eye as Umi whipped her head around to take a closer look. It was an unused grenade, still clutched in the limp fist of a dead soldier. An idea formed in her head, but she would have to reposition herself drastically to even try it. _Try_ , of course, was subjective. A more accurate description of her situation was that she only had one chance to make it work.

Ducking under the heavy fronds of a potted fern, she mentally judged the distance between herself and the corpse of the dead man. The man pursuing her would have to be between them, which meant that she had to somehow make it over to the open area of the room before swerving back to a column she could use as cover to shoot from. Her grip tightened on the handle of her bow. _I have to do this._

Pressing her free hand against her chest for a few moments, she gave herself three seconds before the assassin closed in on her. Pushing herself to her feet the moment he was close enough to get a shot on her, she ran.

Her lungs burned as she sprinted and Umi winced when a shot clipped her ankle, deep enough to leave a cut but not severe enough to make her stumble. Drawing her bow mid-stride, she cast one glance back to make sure he was still following her, slower on his injured leg but still sure of his prey. She was not going to give him that particular satisfaction.

The moment he stepped over the soldier's body, she fired.

Umi had barely a heartbeat to cover the remaining distance between herself and the column she intended to take cover behind before the blast rocked the foundations of the building, sending smoke and flames billowing into the air. She held her sleeve over her mouth and nose as she waited a few minutes before stepping out from behind cover, heart pounding painfully in her chest as she worked to inhale the smoke-saturated air.

She loaded another arrow into her bow, but there was no need.

The man lay on his side, one arm wrapped around the barrel of his pistol; burns covered his fingers and palm and had scoured away the side of his face. Against all odds, he was still breathing.

"Who do you work for?" Umi asked him, her voice a hoarse rasp from exhaustion and smoke.

He coughed, glaring up at her underneath his semi-reflective visor. "People like you don't understand. My brother's only doing what's best for this city," he wheezed. His other hand slipped off his chest, sticky with blood.

Umi stared down at him as understanding clicked inside her brain. _His brother must be Imori. Of course. That explains the results and why he never showed up on the citizen registry._ She raised the bow in her hands with the intent to finish what she had started, but she had one more question for him. The words scraped against the back of her raw throat. "Why did you try to kill Eli?"

The man laughed, the sound petering to a desperate pant for breath. "He ordered it. She had to die—it was unfortunate that I couldn't finish things properly."

"And you don't question those orders?" The words sounded so obvious in her head, but Umi realized that they might only have sounded that way for her.

"If you knew better," he rasped, "you'd understand why not."

"Whatever goals you have, killing people for no reason is not the right answer," she responded. Briefly, she wondered why she was still wasting time here, but it was as though an invisible gravity drew her to the dying man on the floor in front of her. _I want to know. Why you do these things. Why anyone of your status does these things._

"But there is a reason. You'd just never understand it. Besides... you're no different from me. All those mercs back there? What do you tell yourself… the wrong place at the wrong time?"

"No," Umi said quietly, drawing back the string of her bow. "The difference between us is that none of this is for my personal gain. I just want to protect the people I care about."

The man's final laugh was cut off by the point of her arrow driving into the side of his neck.

She turned her back on his dead body as she palmed the elevator control again, stepping into the cool, dim box as it rose into the darkened skies.

 _This still is far from over._


	20. My Hands

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** My Hands - Leona Lewis

(I'm pretty sure this is the first non-Jpop song that's ever been the feature of a chapter, but this song was literally too perfect. You'll see. As another side note, I was introduced to this song because of Final Fantasy XIII, so I can't actually claim to listen to that much English music.)

* * *

 _"Every time I think of the time to come, I wonder—what will Tokyo look like in the distant future? After all the sorrows and tragedies that this city has seen, does it still have one? When I think about how badly I want it to, am I being naïve?_

 _I don't want this future to be built on fear and hatred. I want this future to be built on connections; after all, humanity survives on interdependence. If nothing else, I want that to be my legacy._

 _I want that to be the proof that I've lived here." —Toujou Nozomi_

* * *

When the doors to the service elevator opened on the thirtieth floor, Umi was greeted by the sight and sound of a single merc talking to someone over the radio clipped over his right ear. His back was facing her as she exited the elevator quietly, careful not to make any sounds on the carpeted floor.

"No, I haven't heard from Alpha or Delta Squad," he reported into his mic. There was a pause. "Don't worry," he reassured the person on the other end. "My team's ready to go on a moment's notice. I don't know where the government squads are—not yet. I'll take care of things if Aohebi doesn't return."

Umi approached him with her bow already in position as he cut the transmission to his radio, still looking out the window to the other building. "Turn around, very slowly," she instructed him.

The merc looked over his shoulder, and she saw him press his lips together in muted panic as he took an involuntary step back, hands half-raised without even attempting to reach for the shotgun at his hip. "You don't look like you're with the government. Who are you?" he asked her, in a vain attempt to grasp at straws, though control of the situation was slipping out of his hands and they both knew it.

She ignored the query as she took another step forward. "How do I get across the bridge to the other building?" When he did not immediately reply, she added another condition to the end of her sentence. "Answer my question, and you can go," Umi said evenly, keeping the point of her arrow trained at the base of his throat.

The man looked nervously from the bow in her hands back to the elevator behind her. "Look, lady, even if I had the answer to that question, I wouldn't tell you," he stuttered.

Advancing slowly, Umi narrowed her eyes at him as he took another step backwards, until his back was practically pressed against the glass pane of the window behind him. "I've got nothing more to say to you," he spat in a sudden burst of courage as she closed in on him. "If you shoot me, my team is just through there… they'll be all over you then."

The corner of her mouth twitched at his response; she pulled the string of her bow back just a little bit more and saw him swallow once nervously. "Is a little bit of information worth dying over?" she asked him coldly. "Is Imori?"

She watched as he thought about it for a few heartbeats, warily keeping his gaze on her bow as he deliberated. "No," he finally admitted. "I suppose not." He took a breath before opening his mouth again. "Okay, look. I can give you the card key to access the outdoor foyer through the supply room. There might be more mercs still lurking around the entryway there if they haven't all headed towards Tower One—I'm not sure if they all got the new orders from Imori."

Umi lowered her bow by the slightest margin as he reached into his vest pocket, pulling out a blue plastic card and dropping it on the floor. She gave him a single nod. "Get going."

He did not need to be told twice, pushing past her on his way to the elevator. Umi did not turn her attention away from his retreat until the elevator doors closed and the floors on the display above the doors started ticking down. She bent over to pick up the card key he had dropped on the ground before her and tucked it into her sleeve.

She meandered down the hallway until she found the door labelled _Supply Ducts._ Tapping her newly-obtained card key on the security panel beside it, the light of the door control winked green as she pressed her palm against it.

The metal door slid open soundlessly as a gust of wind smacked her in the face, pushing back her long, dark-blue hair in messy tangles until the metal door resealed behind her.

Her footsteps echoed ominously against the steel foundations of the supply room as Umi scanned the open area for signs of movement. Finding none, she spotted a ramp going up towards the back of the room, curving up against the side of the walls and back around in a catwalk overhead of where she was currently standing.

Cognizant of the fact that there could be mercs lying in wait on the floor above, she moved as quickly as she could while making as little sound as possible. Although she made it to the base of the ramp without running into any signs of trouble, Umi reloaded her bow, just in case.

As she scaled the ramp quickly, she heard the telltale sound of footsteps that were not her own as she neared the top. The wind picked up once she cleared the shelter of the walls that surrounded the sloping ramp and she had to pause for a second before she stepped out of cover to tuck her long blue hair underneath her hood again.

Peeking out from behind a precarious stack of crates, Umi spotted two mercs patrolling the catwalk. One was facing away from her, looking out over the darkening skyline of downtown Tokyo, while the other was fiddling with his gun. Clearly, neither of them had noticed her dash across the room below. It was as perfect of an opportunity as she was going to get.

Her first arrow pierced the side of the closer man's head almost noiselessly, the sound of metal puncturing skin and bone swallowed by the sound of the wind. It was only when his body hit the metal mesh of the catwalk floor did his partner turn around, pistol in hand as he ran up to his friend.

Umi bided her time as the second merc glanced around, angered shock evident in his expression even from where she stood. She did not want to alert any more mercenaries in the area as she drew her bow back silently a second time, and her patience was rewarded when the second merc slumped over the body of his squadmate.

As she pushed onward, Umi could feel the pressure of time pushing against her back now—she had spent far too long in the mezzanine trading shots with Imori's brother, and while she was thankful that she had ended that particular encounter on her own terms, he had been far from her primary target tonight.

Stepping over the pair of dead mercs on the catwalk, she carefully walked out onto the unsheltered rooftop of the top floor of the building. Apart from the wind, it was ominously silent and she could both feel and hear her breath catching in her throat and lungs now, partially from the smoke inhalation earlier and partially in anticipation of what she could find next.

The stiff breeze whistled against the side of the structure as she crept forward. The bridge that connected the two towers was in sight now and Umi did not expect it to be unguarded. Ducking behind a support pillar, she peered out over the last fifty or so metres between her and the bridge in question. Dark had almost completely fallen, the only orange band of light remaining of the sunset poking out stubbornly behind a gathering of storm clouds—but she could spot movement in more than one crevice.

Dropping into a crouch, she readied her bow as she inched closer to the edge of cover, trusting her dark hair and clothing to camouflage her somewhat against the side of the building. She caught a flash of a gun glinting in the light coming from the tower across from them, and fired.

A strangled yell told her she had hit her target as she moved instantly, not wanting to stay still in case the mercs thought of the idea to charge her all at once.

Something flew by her head—too large to be a bullet, but too small to be a chunk of rock—and it was not until she saw the dull flashing from where it had landed that Umi realized what one of the mercenaries had thrown at her.

She threw herself forward, flattening her body behind a wall of crates that held who-knew-what mere moments before the grenade exploded, illuminating the rooftop in a blaze of orange and red. Picking herself up instantly, she reloaded her bow and edged forward, creeping around the stack of crates and pinpointing the merc that had thrown it. He was not looking at her, too busy craning his neck from behind cover to see if his grenade had hit anyone.

Her arrow pieced his abdomen before he could react and she took the opportunity to dash forward, away from the growing flames. There was a third man crouched behind a k-rail next to the bridge, but he was easy pickings for her, too pre-occupied with the radio in his hands to respond properly to her approach.

The way to the bridge was now clear, but Umi hesitated for the briefest moment before she stepped out onto it. For a man who had thrown away a small fortune on a private military company to guard him, she knew she had run into far too little resistance for it to count as a real defence. _There must be more still on the lower floors dealing with the rest of the soldiers, but this can't be all of them._

She caught sight of a khaki uniform halfway across the length of the bridge, the dark stain of blood that surrounded his body standing out against the pale grey of the ground even from where she stood. There was a sizeable hole in the concrete next to his head, and suddenly, Umi knew what—or who—was guarding the bridge. _Damn it._

There was no safe way for her to make it across all one hundred meters of its length without getting hit. She would have to kill the sniper first before she could make it across, and even then, that would not guarantee her safety. She had had no radio contact with Toujou's chief of security since entering the second building. Umi gritted her teeth. _But what choice do I have?_

She took a deep breath of the cold night air, the chill in it somehow stilling her breathing and chasing away her momentary panic. _I have to figure out where he's shooting from._ Only when she worked out where the shots were coming from could she formulate a plan of counterattack. _But what can I use to lure him into taking a shot?_

She glanced around her immediate surroundings, finding nothing living that would serve as a sufficient decoy for movement. Umi took a second glance back across the bridge. There would absolutely no cover once she stepped out onto it and she knew the moment that she did so, she would be a sitting duck for the sniper that no doubt lay in wait somewhere on the other side. Bullets travelled faster than arrows.

She studied the area across the bridge again. There were a few lights on in the windows beyond the landing, enough to let her see by. _If I were a sniper, what spot would be the safest for me to shoot from?_ There were two support columns on either side of the entrance into the other building, joined by a platform. If there was a way onto the platform, she could not see it.

A gust of wind tugged at her hair again, and suddenly, Umi had an idea.

She turned back the way she had come, making sure to conceal herself in the shadows. Within a few minutes, she had located the body of the merc who had thrown a grenade at her again. Finding the rest of his grenades tucked into a looped belt, she retrieved it, holding it in her spare hand before making her way back to where she was hiding just before the bridge.

Pressing the detonator on one of them, she threw it as far as she could off the side of the bridge, expecting a reaction. She was not disappointed—the bright flash of a sniper shot was immediately outlined in the scant lighting as it hit the falling explosive, which exploded in midair, rocking the foundation that she was standing on back and forth slightly. The fragments that remained of the grenade would not be any threat to the passerby below.

More importantly, however, she had all the information she needed now. Thanks to the giveaway shot, she had been able to roughly pinpoint from where the sniper was shooting from and now that she knew where to look, it was just possible to spot the gleam of a dark metal barrel in the dim lighting coming from the tinted glass windows.

She gave herself a single shot to do what she needed to do. It was impossible to move a heavy sniper rifle across the platform the merc was shooting from without catching her attention and she suspected that the sniper would stay in place, banking on the fact that her tossed grenade was an accidental miss.

Umi readied her bow before she stepped out from behind cover, pulling back the string until it was taut with tension. She took a single step out from behind the column, releasing the arrow with her right hand the same moment the merc fired again.

She dashed forward onto the bridge as she felt the heavy bullet pass over her head, disturbing the air and blowing a hole in the concrete behind her. The fact that no continued shots came her way meant that she had hit her target.

Seconds later, panting slightly, she arrived in the cover of the support pillars on the other side of the bridge.

There were no mercenaries in sight as she stepped into the lit room. Splashes of blood and used ammo decorated the sparse furniture of the reception area as Umi climbed the stairs at the back of the room to the winking green light of the elevator.

As she palmed the elevator control, she caught sight of the dead sniper on the balcony outside. She closed her eyes for the briefest moment before the _ding_ of the elevator behind her announced its arrival. Mercifully, it was empty.

Stepping inside, it resumed its silent ascent as Umi checked her stock of arrows. It was low, but she did not anticipate much more resistance before she reached her destination—she remembered the building plans that Toujou's chief of security had shown her the day before and knew that the elevator she was currently riding arrived more or less at the doorstep of Imori's office.

True to the building plan's words, the moment the elevator doors opened again, she was greeted by the sight of several gun barrels before they relaxed, having identified her as a non-threat. She spotted the security chief in question halfway down the hallway a moment before he spotted her. He beckoned her over with a hand.

"Imori's techs jammed our signals," he offered as an apology as she approached him. "I apologize for the lack of communication, though it appears you didn't need the help we could've offered." He looked her up and down once.

Umi shrugged with one shoulder. "I didn't run into that much resistance," she replied. "Except… his brother."

The glint of immediate understanding in the security chief's dark brown eyes was all the confirmation she needed to know that he too, knew the implications of her simple sentence.

"He's dead, I take it?"

She nodded once.

He gave her a grunt of acknowledgement before he turned back to the end of the hallway. "Imori's through here," he told her. "He's locked the door, but, well, it won't take long for our techs to get through it. After he threw so much money at some merc company, I figured he'd have something special for his door." His last sentence was a low mutter, and Umi was not entirely sure if it had been meant for her ears.

One of the men down the hallway gave a sudden shout. "Sir, we've got the door open now!"

The taller man opposite her gave her a significant look. "Would you like to go in?" he asked her.

Umi met his gaze. "Yes," she replied without hesitation.

He nodded. "Bring that bow. Just in case."

* * *

Imori's office was softly lit by moonlight, the antiques that filled the shelves lining the walls touched to a delicate silver, giving them an otherworldly, beautiful appearance that did not seem like it could ever belong in the same room as a man whom Umi knew had commissioned so much death.

Imori himself was sitting behind his desk, chin resting on his joined hands as the government force filtered in through his door. His expression could have only been described as serene. "So you made it," he acknowledged in a quiet voice. It was flat, the words coming out as offhanded as though they meant nothing.

In the dim light, Umi could see that the man in front of her vaguely resembled the dead assassin that lay in the mezzanine of the other building. They had the same sharp, narrow cheekbones and even if it had not been for the silver hair on the president's head, she would have said that the way he carried himself, even in the face of imminent arrest, was uncannily similar to the arrogant confidence of the man she had killed an hour or so ago.

"You're under arrest," Kouchou said from somewhere ahead of her. Umi understood that whatever happened now was out of her jurisdiction—she had absolutely nothing to do with government policies and no say in the man's fate; she had been granted the permission to be where she stood because of the role she had played in taking down his mercenary force, and nothing more.

"For what?" Imori asked. There was no hint of fear or hesitation in his voice as he addressed the chief of security. In fact, if she had been asked, Umi would have said that the tone of his speech could be described as _amused._ She narrowed her eyes.

"A very long list of crimes," Kouchou answered him firmly. "I'm sure that you know them as well as I do. You were the sponsor behind the factory outside of Tokyo's boundaries, as well as the instigator behind the riots, were you not?"

To her utter surprise, the smile on the older man's thin lips grew as he pressed them together. "Ah… I see. However, I don't think I feel the need to answer to our current government. You're free to arrest me if you want, of course, but if you look through my files—as I am sure our young head of state will ask you to do—you will find that all of my actions are merely the product of a plan that was devised long ago between President Tenjoin of Osaka and our previous district ruler."

Umi stared at him, unable to speak as shock froze the rest of her muscles into place.

 _What?_

* * *

Eli strode up to the district building with a purpose.

It was the middle of the day, the late August sunshine beating down harshly on the back of her neck as she made her way through the busy grounds, but she had a particular goal in mind that day and she knew she wasn't leaving until she accomplished it.

Umi had come back from her mission tight-lipped and unwilling—or unable—to disclose what had happened while Kotori had fussed over her inventory of injuries in her hospital room. All her blue-haired friend would say was that something had happened, but if she wanted the full details, she would have to speak to Toujou herself.

Eli had a nasty suspicion it was because it wasn't safe to discuss the matter where they were; she had never known Umi to withhold information from her on purpose, but there was nothing she could do about that.

It was also highly suspicious that Toujou hadn't called her—or gotten Koizumi to call her—as she'd said she would. A few months ago, it would've worried her that she put so much emotional investment into something the violet-haired woman had said to her in passing, but today, after everything that had transpired between them, Eli was genuinely concerned about what could _possibly_ have happened within the span of the last ninety-six hours.

According to Maki, Toujou had also cancelled her press conference the previous evening without notice. If nothing else, _that_ was what worried her most. She thought she knew the district ruler well enough by now to know that that wasn't something she did for anything less than a significant reason. The topic of the press had come up once or twice in one of their discussions, and Eli knew that Toujou was both aware and well-versed in the power of the media. _Something has happened. If Umi can't tell me what it is, then she's the only other person who can._ The thought instilled a certain sense of uneasy anticipation underneath her skin, hanging onto her like fog clinging to thick ferns, unable to let go even though sunlight penetrated through the upper levels of the forest.

It was convenient that Maki had also decided to let her go that morning, having decided that since Umi had been confined to their apartment for the next few days by Kotori as a live-in chaperone, she could be trusted not to engage in risky behaviour. Though the skin on her back still felt tight because the stitches had yet to be removed, she wasn't in pain anymore and could move around with relative ease.

Eli ducked around the milling groups of politicians, picking up on their nervous speech as she passed them. Normally, she would've stopped to listen to them for a few moments, but today, their anxious chatter meant next to nothing to her as she entered the doors of the district building.

Koizumi picked her out from the crowd the moment she stepped through the entrance of the foyer. The brunette's mouth opened and closed more than once as Eli approached, as though she was at a complete loss for what to say. They ended up staring at each other for a full minute or two before Koizumi pressed her lips together for the last time and took a breath. "G-Good afternoon, Ayase-san," she stammered. It was clear from the way the secretary looked at her that she knew why it had been some time since she'd last visited the district building, but to Koizumi's credit, she didn't voice it aloud. "W-What can I do for you?"

"I need to see Toujou-sama," she replied, keeping her voice matter-of-fact.

Eli didn't miss the momentary flash of panic in her lavender gaze as she glanced backwards nervously, fidgeting in her seat. "Uhm, I-I don't think today is a good day, Ayase-san. W-Would it be okay for you if you came back tomorrow?"

She placed her hands on either side of Koizumi's desk, holding the younger woman's gaze in an effort to convey the seriousness of her request. "Please," she said. The monosyllable sentence held tangible weight and Eli knew Koizumi felt it too, though she did her best to hide it with an awkward fidget.

There was silence between them for a few seconds before the brunette dipped her head. "L-Let me go see if she's willing to make an exception."

Eli crossed her arms as she waited, unwilling to let herself give into the nervous energy eating away at her limbs. She felt uncomfortably restless and alive at the moment—the solemn, haunted expression on Umi's face wasn't easy to forget and it chased around her brain like a threatened, cornered animal; the sensation of it unearthing something that Toujou had said to her in the past from the back of her memories.

 _"The truth, Ayase-san, is both beautiful and terrifying. Some people spend their whole lives searching for it and never find it, not because they don't look hard enough, but because it is something they cannot accept."_

She was sure that that look on Umi's face had been mirrored on her own the first time Toujou had said those words to her.

But Eli didn't have time to dwell on her thoughts further, because Koizumi reappeared at the end of the hallway, a worried expression on her face as she nibbled on her bottom lip. The brunette rearranged her features into something that resembled passivity as she approached, though the attempt was so obviously forced it was almost transparent.

"T-Toujou-sama told me that if you're sure it's really important, then she has the time to see you now. S-She's in the conference room," Koizumi informed her once she'd returned to her desk. She opened her mouth again as if to say something more, but closed it hastily, clearly having decided against it.

Eli thanked her before brushing past her desk, escaping the noise and density of the lobby of the district building as she followed the familiar route to her destination. The upper floors of the building were deserted, her footsteps echoing and lonely against the perfectly polished walls.

She paused outside the doorway to the conference room. The door itself was ajar, but a wave of trepidation seized her hand before Eli could knock. She willed herself to calm down—she knew herself well enough that she wouldn't get anywhere if she had no control over her own mentality—and it was a few minutes before she was able to wrest the fine tremble of her fingers down to a minimum.

Knocking softly on the door once, she waited.

There was no reply, but this time, Eli knew that there would've been no reason for Koizumi to lie to her about the head of state's whereabouts. She gave Toujou a minute to compose herself before she opened the door and let herself in.

She picked out the slender form of the district ruler sitting alone in one of the chairs at the end of the room almost immediately. Toujou looked up when she entered, and Eli caught her fleeting expression of desolate listlessness before the violet-haired woman collected herself.

"Good afternoon, Eli." Her voice held the hint of a tremor as Eli settled herself on the edge of a chair opposite her. "What can I do for you today? Koizumi said you sounded insistent, although I must admit I didn't expect you to be coming right from the hospital." The ghost of a smile twitched at the corner of her lips, but it was empty and cursory at best.

It wasn't hard to see that there was a storm lurking underneath the surface. Toujou just happened to be sitting in its eye, a false calm in the centre of a hopelessness that saturated the environment around her, whether she wanted to pretend it existed or not.

Eli decided it would be more beneficial to them both if she just said what was on her mind. "Umi told me that something happened two nights ago. She wouldn't tell me what it was, and told me that if I wanted to know, I should speak to you myself."

Toujou regarded her in a curious sort of way, as though she couldn't work out where her words were coming from. "Sonoda-san didn't tell you anything?" she asked, mild surprise evident in her tone as she delicately raised an eyebrow at her.

"No," Eli answered. "She said that it was better if I heard it directly from you." Unconsciously, her right hand moved up to grip the armrest of the chair; she wasn't sure if it was because she needed the support from it, or because she needed something to do with her restless fingers.

A more genuine smile formed on the district ruler's lips, but there was more than one emotion lurking underneath it that she couldn't immediately read. "Then I'm afraid I can't help you. Unfortunately, this isn't a matter for you to concern yourself with, Eli."

"No," Eli repeated. She was surprised by how steady her voice sounded, even to herself. "You can't do this. You're the one who wanted to be friends—you can't just arbitrarily decide when that is the case and when it isn't."

There was a part of her that told her she should stop before she went too far, but Eli ignored it. Talons of equal parts desperation, equal parts frustration clawed painfully at her diaphragm in her need to make her point heard, because she had finally recognized the expression eating at the corners of Toujou's features—she had spent years staring at it in the mirror in the morning.

 _You're doing what I tried to do. I tried to keep everything to myself. I told myself that it was impossible for other people to understand how I was feeling, so I was better off solving all my problems on my own. It didn't get me anywhere, because the more I bottled up, the more demons came to haunt me until there was a point where I couldn't deal with it all anymore._

 _Don't make the same mistakes I did._

Toujou's emerald gaze widened as she raised her head to finally, finally, fully meet her gaze. Eli held it until the other woman's expression softened, the tense, resolute set of her jaw relaxing by the slightest margin.

Finally, she spoke. "You're right," she acquiesced at last. She did not elaborate, but Eli didn't push her for an answer. She had learned the hard way that some things had to come out on their own time.

Eli moved her hands to the tabletop, lacing her fingers together to give them something to do as silence enveloped the space around them once more.

It was awhile before Toujou spoke again, getting up from her chair and making her way over to the window until she faced the sunny grounds outside. "Have I ever told you about my father?"

Eli quashed her surprise at the question, knowing that there had to be a point to where she was going with that particular question. "No," she said.

Toujou hummed quietly in acknowledgment. "What do you know about him?" she asked in a soft voice, turning her head toward her as if to gauge her response to her question.

She thought about it. "To be honest, not much," Eli admitted truthfully. When the senior Toujou had been in power, it had been a time when they'd still been struggling to make ends meet. With Maki and Alisa still in school, it had been up to her and Umi to somehow come up with the money to live off of—she had spent most of her nights working for a various assortment of clientele and most of her days sleeping as a result. "I... We weren't in a position to be interested in politics at the time."

Nodding once, Toujou looked down at the carpet beneath their feet for a moment before she raised her head to stare out of the glass of the window again. Her voice was muted, but there was a purpose to it as she continued.

"When I was little, my father was the rock-solid centre of my world. Everything that he did fascinated me, from the decisions he told me he was making for this city, to the plans he told me he had for its future. As you might expect, my political education started very early." She paused, her verdant gaze far away as she spoke from her memories. "He told me he believed in the power of the human race—that if we had enough knowledge and if we could create enough resources and strength for ourselves with that knowledge, we could accomplish anything."

A shard of sorrow settled somewhere near Eli's heart when she realized she knew what came next. "But instead, we created Edenra."

Toujou smiled, the expression sad and genuine. "Yes. It was like everything that he'd ever believed in came crashing down around him. There were times where I didn't think I recognized him anymore, because he was working so hard to become this district's head of state. On the rare occasions that I did see him, he told me it was because he wanted to make sure that humanity still had a future. He told me that he would do anything to make that future a reality. Even when he created the outer districts for the Edenra victims, he told me that it was so he could preserve what was left of humanity so that it was possible for us continue forward. At the time, I believed that he truly had our best interests at heart."

Eli did not miss the bitterness that corroded the end of her sentence. "What happened?" she asked gently.

"The future he wanted was one where he wiped out all the Ceresis on earth by force," Toujou told her, her voice chipped and as emotionless as glass. "To make that future a reality, he realized that he had to turn the citizens of this city against the victims of Edenra so that they would approve of a plan to build a railgun module. Along with President Tenjoin of Osaka, he planned to move this railgun to the moon so that after they had destroyed the Ceresis, they would be able to use it against the other countries that still remain in this world. If Bloody Valentine had never happened, I'm sure that he would have found a way to make this future come to fruition much sooner." Her mouth quirked, and she looked away.

Finally, Eli knew what Umi must've heard from the errant businessman at the top of his business tower, understanding why her blue-haired friend had been reluctant to share what she had learned. _This story… was not hers to tell me. She knew that._

"Is that what you found out a few nights ago?" Eli asked her quietly. She knew the answer to her question, but it felt wrong to leave it vulnerably unaddressed and out in the open.

When Toujou looked back at her, her eyes glittered.

"Yes." There was tangible pain in the violet-haired woman's voice as she curled one of her gloved hands into a fist, pressing it against the windowpane. Toujou shook her head once, pressing her lips together in a thin line as she continued. "I… don't know what's worse, you know? Finding out that my father was the one behind all of the problems I have at the moment, or the fact that I look like a fool running around trying to solve all of the problems he created." She laughed softly, the sound twisted, but Eli could hear the anguish behind it. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. For the first time since I've inherited his position, I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Wordlessly, Eli stood up. Walking over to the window, she stopped when she was a few feet away from the district ruler. She was close enough to see that she was crying.

Pity tightened around her throat in a thin, constricting wire, but she didn't have the felicity to express the emotions weighing down on her chest like a ton of bricks, the viscosity of the mortar that held them together swallowing the syllables that she wanted to say. _I know how this feels. I know what it feels like to not know how to regain the slightest bit of control over the situation in front of you, and to feel so completely helpless that you don't even know where to begin._

But if Toujou was anything like her, then Eli knew that she wasn't looking for her pity. The fact that the most powerful person in the Tokyo District was crying in front of her barely registered in her mind as she took a half-step forward, enough to allow her to gently put a hand on her shoulder. The awkwardness between them that had been present the last time they'd been this close in terms of physical proximity had been melted away by the moments of vulnerability that they had inexplicably shared. "Hey… You know, it's okay not to know what to do," she said gently.

Toujou looked sideways at her, the back of her hand pressed against her mouth in an attempt to control her emotions. "But I'm supposed to," she replied, her voice slightly muffled through the fabric of her glove. "All the problems that he's left behind… it's supposed to be my job to fix them all. That's my responsibility as the ruler of this district."

Eli shook her head once. "If we were born knowing how to solve all of the problems we would ever encounter, then what's the point of living?" Her voice carried her own pain—of the times she knew she would've given anything to have the single chance of doing them over, of all the times that she had sat in front of her laptop, unsure of what the right thing was to do and yet afraid of the unknown consequences of her choices—and of all the time that she had wasted because she had been too scared to admit that she didn't know what to do. "We can't go back to change the past," she murmured, "no matter how much we might want to. It's okay not to know what we should do for the future. What's not okay is to be so afraid of not knowing what to do that we don't do anything at all."

Toujou brushed away the tears that clung to her cheeks. "That's… easier said than done, you know," she said, a hint of her usual tone returning to her voice. "But whatever I choose to do now, regardless of how I feel, will have an effect not only on the people who live in this city now, but everyone who will live in this city in the future. I might not like what I've heard, but my advisors will all have read the report containing Imori's confession. You know as well as I do that there are more than a few of them who would aim to push the agenda that they've discovered. What do I do then?" she asked her, finally allowing tenebrous despair to creep into her words.

"Tou—N-Nozomi," Eli began, the syllables of the first name feeling strange and unfamiliar on her tongue—though to her surprise, she found that it did not deter her from continuing. "I don't have the answer to your question. Not because I don't have an opinion, but because my opinion shouldn't matter. I think you know what you still want to do, but you're afraid of what might happen because of what you decide." She paused, taking a breath that felt like she was inhaling pinecones, as it did little to calm the erratic pounding of her heart and the rising surge of emotion against her sternum. "What other people think doesn't matter. You said it yourself—at the end of the day, the decision is ultimately yours… so the only thing that should matter is how _you_ feel about it. That's it."

When she finished, Eli found that the district ruler was looking at her intently, the wild, barren ache in her green gaze having been replaced by a bold, tranquil understanding.

Neither of them spoke for a long time, the silence between them stretching out into long minutes no one was counting. It was as though time no longer mattered. The concept of a world waiting for them outside the room they were standing in had vanished.

Finally, the violet-haired woman moved from where she was half-leaning, half-sitting against the table beside her until they were standing face to face. "I know," she admitted softly. "I'm sorry—I should have known better. But… I think… I needed to hear someone say it out loud before I was willing to accept that that is what I have to do."

A small smile tugged at the corner of Eli's mouth. "Then, I'm glad I could help."

The district ruler took a step towards her. "Thank you." The words were simple, but impossibly gentle in their delivery. They were so close that Eli could see how her throat still worked to swallow the unshed tears.

Then, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to hers. It lasted only a second, perhaps two, but Eli couldn't move, her limbs frozen into place by the blank, tumultuous storm in her head. The other woman pulled away before she could.

"I wanted to do that. Just once," she said before she turned and left the room.


	21. illuminate

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** illuminate - Minami

* * *

 _"I've never believed in giving up. What's the point of beginning something—being determined to do something—if you're just going to quit the moment you think it's impossible? Honestly, I'm pretty damn sure that's why this city hasn't gotten anywhere in the last eight years. We've got all these businessmen who think throwing money at the problem is going to solve it, and politicians who walk around with their heads stuck in the sand, pretending that something doesn't exist until it smacks them in the face._

 _Are you kidding me? Are these the people we're entrusting our future to?_

 _Please. Every time someone tells me not to bother, it just bolsters my resolve. So no, I'm not going to stop until I've solved this, no matter what anyone says about me. It doesn't matter who my father was. What matters is what I do on this earth, here and now." —Nishikino Maki_

* * *

The late summer sunlight cast dappled shadows on the park pathway as she passed underneath it, the shifting pattern of light and dark creating the sense of a balmy illusion beneath the treetops. Sweat was already beading on her brow, but Eli saw no reason to stop her jog through Tokyo's busiest park. She knew she was pushing it, but she wanted to feel the exhaustion. Fatigue was her goal.

It helped keep her from thinking too much.

The aftermath of Imori's arrest had been nightmarish. The reporters had pounced on the details of his incarceration with the ardour of a wake of hungry vultures, broadcasting every facet of information they could get their hands on—regardless of whether it was true or false—to the public. It hadn't taken long for every citizen in the district to know exactly what his personal files had contained. She didn't know who had leaked those files to the media, but Eli suspected the incidence wouldn't be the last.

Toujou had held exactly one press conference since the news had become public. She had deflected the questions with exanimate efficiency, her voice as hard as winter ice cracking on a river, and had blatantly refused to commentate on what she planned to do next. Eli had never seen her dismiss the media with such careless nonchalance, even though she knew what the violet-haired woman wanted to do.

However, there was a part of her that had understood. _I would've been nervous enough, knowing that what I wanted isn't what most of the people in this city wanted. It would've taken me a long time to find the right words to express myself even if I_ wasn't _afraid of their opinions, but before I could find a way to phrase things in a way that could've sounded somewhat sane, someone had to leak everything to the media._ She remembered the resolve that she'd seen in Toujou's eyes, and Eli fervently hoped that what she had said to her wouldn't somehow be invalidated by the rest of the public opinion.

And of course, thoughts of Toujou segued right into the kiss.

Chaste as it was, the mere thought of it was enough to make her shake her head vigorously as though she could deny it had happened. There had been something so raw and intimate about it, even though it had lasted all of two seconds.

 _"I wanted to do that. Just once."_

Eli had stood there, with her face and lips burning, for what felt like an eternity before she finally stumbled out of the conference room on numb, lifeless legs. Toujou had acted like nothing had happened between them ever since.

She didn't understand it, because none of it added up. How was it remotely possible that the leader of the Tokyo District was interested in _her_?

Eli finally stopped by the water fountain towards the centre of the park with her hands on her knees, chest heaving from the effort of running. Her stitches had finally been removed last week, which had caused Maki to give her a long list of explicit instructions and warnings about overexerting herself, but she was past caring about the redhead's medical advice at the moment. Weeks'— _months'_ —worth of little hints suddenly burst forth from their hiding spots in her mind, and she tried to shut the door on them as though avoiding them and pretending they'd never happened would make them vanish.

Her distorted reflection in the fountain's pool stared back at her.

If she was one hundred percent honest with herself, Eli knew she shouldn't have been surprised, even though it still bewildered her that someone who had been born into the highest social standing their city currently had to offer would have even looked twice at her, let alone tried to find out the kind of person she was underneath the surface. Considering the nature their relationship had become recently, if it had been anyone else, she would've said that it was inevitable.

 _But not me—and not her. Why?_

A better question was why she was even considering Toujou's implicit request to begin with when she had never really felt genuinely attracted to anyone in her life. Relationships of that nature had never been at the forefront of her mind—they had seemed meaningless, almost inconsequentially so, next to the weighted struggles of trying to find her sister, or the effort of just living.

Dating had felt like a waste of energy in comparison.

However, she couldn't deny that it sounded like an enticing idea in her head; even if the logistics of being in a relationship with the most powerful person in Tokyo didn't appeal to her, there was no way around what it would _mean_. But even if just the emotional connection with another person interested her, Eli had never allowed herself to be taken that way in her life.

The fact that it had the potential to go completely badly and end even worse was more than enough to make her stop the train of thought in their tracks then and there.

There was a part of her that was curious, though. Deep down, she knew there was a part of her that wanted to know what would happen if she said yes. Inevitably, inexplicably, they had both seen each other at their most vulnerable—and that, along with all the other conversations they'd ever had made it impossible to deny the connection—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost—between them.

It was different from the kind of connection she had with Umi and Maki. Eli trusted both of her friends with her life, but to the best of her memory, the three of them had never had the kind of conversation she'd already had on more than one occasion with Toujou. Simply put, none of them were good at talking about their feelings, and that much more reluctant to share them. Toujou had the uncanny ability to make it impossible not to lay them out on the table.

What surprised Eli most was that she was willing to take her share of the load back. There had been much more to the district ruler than she had ever imagined before meeting her in person, and when she'd looked back, she realized it had been foolish of her to think that they had absolutely nothing in common. They were far more alike than she would've thought—or wanted to admit—and based on their personalities alone, she knew that sooner or later they would have to deal with what had happened the previous week. It was impossible for either of them to leave it hanging between them unaddressed for long, and eventually, one of them would have to take the first step to bring it up.

 _She wants an answer. The problem is, I don't know what that answer is, because I don't know what I want._

* * *

Maki gently prodded one of her specimens with the tip of a scalpel, satisfied with the results that she had just gotten. She took the pen out of her mouth and scribbled something down on her worn lab notebook, flipping back a few pages to make sure she had her data columns right.

Since she'd obtained several more cans of aerosolized Namidite from Honoka, she was positive that somehow, the answer to their Ceresis problems was contained in the little cans. The air particles were absorbed much more quickly than their liquid counterparts, and the spray was completely safe for anyone non-infected to breathe in, as they had been originally developed as a last minute deterrent for any bounty hunter who found themselves alone on the other side of the fence against a Ceresis. The problem with the sprays was that its contents were quickly snapped up by the wind, scattering and diluting them until the concentration was too low for it to be effective, which was why most bounty hunters and mercenaries preferred Namidite weapons.

But Maki was sure that could be altered, especially when airborne Namidite posed no health concerns to a healthy human. She had achieved more positive lab results with her half-a-dozen bottles of Namidite spray in the last few weeks than the last two years combined. _If only we could figure out the concentration problem and how this is going to be distributed across the country, I know this could be the answer to Edenra._

Putting away the last of her samples in an incubator, she sat down on her rolling chair with her pen and notebook again, tapping the barrel of her pen against the side of the gurney she was using as a desk. _How can we make it so that the concentration can't be decreased?_ She had a limited background in biochemistry, but she had a few contacts at the laboratory Honoka worked at that she could consult.

She stared at one of the offending spray bottles as she thought, absent-mindedly eating out of the beaker next to her with a fork. _I know there's a solution in there somewhere._

As she swallowed her last mouthful of instant ramen, an idea came to her head. Pulling her notebook towards her once more, Maki flipped through it, wanting to make sure of her data before she picked up her cellphone and picked a name out of her contacts list.

"Hello?" she said once the call had connected. "Yes, this is Nishikino. I was wondering if your lab techs would be willing to do me a favour."

For the first time, a satisfied smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She felt a faint but acute sense of triumph—something that had never happened before in relation to her research—as Maki waited for the lab manager to respond.

 _Just a few more adjustments, and then it'd be possible to make this work._ The fingers of her left hand slowly clenched into a fist as unexpected nerves gripped her stomach. _We have to._

* * *

Nozomi stared back into the dark brown gaze of her chief advisor. "No," she repeated firmly. "I can't allow that."

Fujiwara paced in front of her. "What's the point in pretending it hasn't happened?" he growled at her. "The information has already been made public, and support for the railgun module is growing. There are more than a few companies who have already contacted us to say that they're willing to sponsor it, and you'd be foolish not to take them up on their offer." He jerked his head up sharply as he paused in front of her desk. "President Tenjoin of Osaka is also requesting an audience with you to discuss the details of this particular plan. He wants an answer from you."

"Be as that may, I don't intend to agree with President Tenjoin," she replied delicately, fighting to keep her temper as she held the man's gaze. "He knows what answer I gave him previously. That hasn't changed."

Fujiwara threw up his hands in frustration as he stopped pacing altogether. "Don't you understand? What's at stake here is your public image. Do you honestly that think you'll be able to keep your position for much longer if you don't give the citizens what they want?"

She got up from her chair and smoothed out her dress before she brushed past him. "Only you would care so much about the notion of 'public image', Fujiwara-san," she told him blithely. "I'm going for a walk."

Ignoring his outraged sputter behind her, Nozomi shut the door on him as she made her way down the empty hallway of the district building. Though it was early September, the weather was still balmy and would probably remain that way for at least a few more weeks before autumn really took hold of the city.

She had absolutely no desire to go downstairs to the entrance hall of the building, already knowing that there would be anxious knots of politicians and reporters alike who would love nothing more than the opportunity to interrogate her about what she wanted to do next. She knew she had been uncharacteristically dismissive of them during the single press conference she had held after someone had leaked Imori's files to the media, but she didn't intend to rectify that mistake anytime soon. She had been so shaken by the revelation of the files herself that she hadn't had the chance to come up with a well-prepared defence to face the reporters with. Nozomi wished that she'd had more time, but she was also acutely aware of the fact that time was just another one of the things that she no longer had the luxury of.

More than once, she had considered entertaining the notion that the senate was pressing on her—agreeing to President Tenjoin's plan of a railgun module because it had been part of the plans that her father had left behind. But deep down, she knew that that was not the right reason to give in to their demands; every time she briefly considered the option, the words of a certain blonde came back to haunt her.

 _"I don't have the answer to your question. Not because I don't have an opinion, but because my opinion shouldn't matter. I think you know what you still want to do, but you're afraid of what might happen because of what you decide. What other people think doesn't matter. You said it yourself—at the end of the day, the decision is ultimately yours… so the only thing that should matter is how you feel about it. That's it."_

She shook her head once at the thought of Eli. The motion dislodged a strand of violet hair from her forehead, and Nozomi wondered if it had been a mistake to pursue her. It had been clear from the way that Eli had avoided her gaze the few times that she'd seen her the past week that she hadn't been expecting it.

If truth was told, she didn't know where it had come from herself. It had been impulsive, borne by the tumultuous consequences of the emotions that she had struggled to keep to herself for days, but she would be lying to herself if she said she had regretted it—especially in that moment.

But the look in Eli's blue eyes had been more confused rather than offering outright rejection, and for the umpteenth time, she wished that Eli wasn't so painfully easy to read. The expression on her face had made Nozomi more uneasy than if she'd just said no.

 _What could there be about my intentions that she doesn't understand?_ Nozomi didn't think she could've made them more clear than she had, which begged the question—if Eli _knew_ what her intentions were, then what was it that was preventing her from giving her an answer?

The question had lingered in her mind for the better part of a week, chasing itself around in circles. She still hadn't been able to come up with a plausible—reasonable—answer to it yet.

When she reached her intended destination, Nozomi stopped abruptly when she spotted a familiar head of blonde hair leaning forward against the stone railing of a gazebo. She had forgotten that she'd given Eli access to the garden at the back of the district building as neither of them had had a reason to visit it in the past few weeks, but it was clear that Eli had also chosen this particular spot to escape the ever-scrutinizing gaze of her advisors after being asked to come in to investigate the source of the unfortunate information leak.

It was too late to turn back now, because the sound of her footsteps had caused Eli to turn around. Their eyes met inadvertently as Nozomi held a hand up to dismiss the pair of security guards following behind her.

Taking a breath, she followed the pathway that led up to the pavilion, stepping into the shade of the trees that surrounded it. She was somewhat surprised when Eli opted not to move away from her, instead carefully keeping her gaze trained on the grove of maples in the distance.

She had expected silence to hang between them for a long time, reminiscent of some of their previous conversations when neither of them had known what the right thing to say was, but this time, that was not the case.

After a few minutes, Eli slid her elbows back against the rough stone and straightened up, though she still wasn't looking at her. "So," she began, stumbling somewhat on the syllables as though she wasn't sure how they would be received, "we should talk."

The ghost of a smile played at the corner of Nozomi's lips. "What would you like to talk about?" she asked, endeavouring to keep her voice light, though she knew what was coming.

Eli exhaled a faint snort through her nose. "You know what."

Nozomi laughed softly as she glanced behind them, making sure her security guards were a respectable distance away from them. "I do indeed," she replied serenely. Her voice was calm, but slight wave of nausea rose at the back of her throat. Somehow, she felt more nervous about the coming conversation than she had facing a roomful of senators who disagreed with her opinion, although she had a sneaking suspicion she was not alone in that sense.

Finally, Eli looked at her. Nozomi watched her swallow a few times before taking a deep breath. "Before I… say anything, can I ask you something?"

She raised an eyebrow delicately at her underneath her dark bangs. "Hm?"

The blonde took another sharp breath before she spoke, her words precarious and tentative. "I just… want to know—why me? You… literally could've picked anyone you wanted in this district. I'm sure there are more than enough people who could offer you anything you want and also have the power and money to make sure that your plans for the future of this city happen. So… next to that, why me?" she repeated quietly.

The smile from earlier morphed into something genuine as Nozomi turned to fully face her. "Because that's not what I'm interested in," she said simply. "I thought you knew me better than that, Eli. No matter what anyone in this district says they can promise me, it wouldn't be anything I wouldn't be able to obtain myself. I'm not looking for someone who only has the influence to back up what they claim to want to do. You know as well as I do that there's always an ulterior motive behind the intentions of the people you're referring to."

The expression in the cerulean gaze staring back at her was still hesitantly bewildered. "But… that's true of anyone. Even me," Eli replied uncertainly.

"I don't disagree with that," Nozomi acknowledged evenly, "but the difference is that the things you wanted weren't for your own sake. I believe that you were the one who told me that you chose to make the decisions you did because it was the right thing to do?"

"I-" The blonde tried to argue with her, but she cut her off.

"I told you very early on in our relationship that you intrigued me," Nozomi reminded her in a steady voice. "I told you that unlike most of the people around me, who have spent years perfecting the art of hiding how they feel and what they think, you were very expressive with your thoughts and emotions. When we met for the very first time, you weren't looking at me because of the position I held. You were looking at me because you were trying to decide what kind of person I was."

The fleeting expression that passed through Eli's blue eyes at her statement only served to confirm her assertion and somehow cemented in her chest the words she wanted to say next.

"I wasn't lying to you, you know, when I told you that I'd never met someone who did the things you chose to do without even considering what she might be able to ask for in return," she went on gently. "But it was clear from your responses that the thought never even crossed your mind."

She paused. "Eli. I don't want someone to give me the money or the power to create the future I want to see for this city to use for their own benefit. I want someone who's not afraid to tell me why something is the right thing to do, not for herself, but for the people that that decision really matters for. I want someone who understands why I want the things I do for this city, not because there's something in that future for her, but because she understands why the past can't be repeated."

Nozomi was sure the sorrow in Eli's eyes was reflected in her own when she finished. Silence enveloped the space around them as they stared at each other for several long moments that could've lasted the span of single heartbeat or stretched onwards in countless minutes, before Eli finally looked away.

"I… didn't realize that was how you felt about me," she finally murmured.

Nozomi shook her head slightly, fighting the smile that threatened to make a reappearance on her face. "Does that answer your question?" she asked her in a soft voice. The question came out serene and composed, but apprehensive energy jangled underneath the surface.

Wordlessly, Eli nodded. It was awhile before she looked up again. Nozomi noticed the anxious way her slender fingers were knotted together before she forced herself to relax. "I guess… what it really comes down to is that I'm scared."

"Scared?" Nozomi echoed. "I'm afraid you'll have to forgive me if I have a hard time believing that. Are you sincerely trying to tell me that after all this time, you're afraid of me?"

"No!" Eli held her hands up in a flustered, defensive posture; taking a step backwards she shook her head. "That—wasn't what I meant. I'm not scared of _you_ ," she clarified. "It's just—I've… never done this before."

Nozomi looked at her imploringly, unable to hide her amused skepticism at her words. "You can't really be trying to tell me that no one has ever confessed to being attracted to you."

Eli pushed the fingers of one hand through her blonde hair. "No, of course not," she said slowly, the tone of her voice belying the words of her sentence. "But… you don't even know me that well! You don't know half the things I've gone through or done. You haven't seen me when I—" She cut herself off; Nozomi wondered if it was because she'd realized what she'd been about to say and had remembered that it wasn't true anymore.

"Is that something I need to be concerned with right this minute?" Nozomi asked her delicately. "Of course, you're right—that in the grand scheme of things, I _don't_ know you that well. But I don't need to know every facet of your life to know what kind of person you are, because it was evident from the things you asked me that you care deeply about the people you love. Besides," she continued softly, "we all carry our past with us. Whatever happens in relation to it, I think we can deal with that when the time comes."

Eli looked down at the ground underneath their feet, shaking her head again. "I don't know. I mean, what if something goes wrong and you end up hating who I am? What do we do then?"

"And we're both adults," Nozomi told her. "Mature ones at that, I presume. Unless this is your way of trying to let me know you're not interested?"

It really _was_ endearing how easily Eli got flustered as Nozomi watched a faint splash of colour appear on her cheeks. "What?" she stammered. "N-No, that's not it!" Taking a step back, Eli's blonde bangs fell into her face as she stared back at her, blue eyes conflicted. "It just… surprised me," she confessed at last after several minutes of silence. "Because it made no sense that you would be interested in me."

"It doesn't have to make sense," Nozomi said quietly. "It's the truth. You're the one who told me that I shouldn't discount how I feel about something."

Eli opened her mouth to argue again, but at that point, she didn't want to bother with any more explanations. Closing the distance between them, she tilted her head up until their foreheads touched, undeterred by Eli's stiffness or the way her hands had balled into fists, and kissed her.

It was a soft, lingering question of a kiss. Nozomi reached down to loosen the tension in her hands. She was not surprised to find Eli's fingertips were warm. Given their physical proximity, she was convinced it was possible for the other woman to feel the frantic pace of her heart in the limited distance between them until she finally felt Eli relax enough to reciprocate.

The moment seemed to draw out endlessly, obliterating the last remnants of the invisible barrier between them.

"Mmm. Okay," Eli finally murmured against her lips.

"Okay… what?"

"Okay, I'll give this a try."

It was hard to remember how to breathe properly over the sudden burn in her chest and the prickle of nerves against her skin. "Would this be an inappropriate time for me to state that you won't regret it?"

Eli laughed softly. She looked down at their joined hands briefly before she disentangled them gently. "You might," she replied with an arched brow.

"Somehow, I don't think so," Nozomi told her, though there was a serious note underneath her otherwise light tone of voice. She turned to face the greenery that surrounded them, breathing in the earthy, humid air of late summer. She _felt_ light—even elated—and for the first time in two weeks, it felt possible to go back into the district building and face the politicians that demanded an answer she did not want to give from her.

They stood in companionable silence for awhile, until Eli broke it.

"What are you going to tell—you know, your advisors?" she asked. "I've never been under the impression that they liked me very much."

It was her turn to laugh. "Why don't you leave worrying about that up to me?" Nozomi asked her. "They don't like you for the exact reasons that I _do_ like you, so I wouldn't put that much faith into their assessment of you if I were you. You see, they're afraid that I'll find out what really goes on in this city outside of the walls of this building if I hear the news from anyone but them and the media."

It felt liberating to finally be able to discuss the root of her problems with someone else that she trusted and wasn't inherently biased one way or another. She had spent years tiptoeing around various politicians because she knew with absolute certainty that she was just another powerful pawn in their game, but Nozomi knew better to voice that assertion aloud. When those same politicians had realized that it wouldn't be as easy as they thought it would be to manipulate her, they had resorted to giving her a hard time, especially when their agendas did not align. She was also just as certain that several of her advisors came from the same vein, though, of course, that was just one more thing she could share with no one but herself.

Eli frowned. "Wouldn't that just create more problems for you if they find out, then?"

"It would, except I'm neither looking for nor do I need their approval," she replied nonchalantly. "Although, that _is_ one thing I _would_ like to warn you about. Once this becomes more public knowledge, as it inevitably will, there will be people coming to you instead of me. I trust that you know how to handle yourself, but you should prepare yourself regardless."

Eli nodded once in response. Nozomi could tell by the set of her features that she knew exactly what she was talking about—perhaps had even thought about it in advance.

The two of them were interrupted by the sound of rapid footsteps on grass, and Nozomi narrowed her eyes at the sight of one of her attendants nearly stumbling over his feet in his urgency to reach her. He bowed hastily in front of them and was unsuccessful in completely hiding his curious glance in Eli's direction before he opened his mouth. "T-Toujou-sama," he greeted her.

"Yes?" she inquired lightly. She did not like the consternation that clung to him like cobwebs. Even though he was a few feet away from them, the nervous energy around him was obvious.

"It's President Tenjoin. He came over from Osaka this morning when you didn't respond to his request for an audience, and he's demanding to see you this afternoon. He's here _now_."

Nozomi furrowed her brows at the thought of older man's impatience and she was acutely aware of the way Eli tensed beside her as she turned back to her attendant. "Thank you," she told him. "Tell him I'll be there to meet him in half an hour."

He bowed again before he rushed off back in the direction of the district building.

"What are you going to do?" Eli asked her quietly once he was out of sight.

She sighed. "I'll have to meet with him, I suppose. He turned up in Tokyo because he knew it would reflect poorly on me if I don't meet with him while he's here. Essentially, he's trying to stop me from avoiding him because he wants an answer from me."

Eli's aquamarine gaze was troubled. " _Are_ you avoiding him?"

"No," Nozomi replied, "but the less time I have to construct an appropriate answer for him, the more likely he thinks he can intimidate me into doing what he wants." She tightened a gloved hand into a fist momentarily before she relaxed it, putting to voice a suspicion that had lurked at the back of her consciousness for two weeks. "I'm sure that somehow, he was responsible for leaking those files to the media. I have no proof apart from my assessment of his personality, of course, but it's something I know he would do."

"Would you like me to be there, then?" Eli offered instantly.

Nozomi looked at her intently. "I… wasn't going to ask. But bear in mind, he most certainly knows who you are and what you do. He may have even had a hand in the attempt on your life. Knowing all that, is this a risk you're willing to take?"

The resolve in Eli's expression was impossible to miss. Nozomi had seen that look on her face before, once when they had been discussing the topic of her sister, and once when they had spoken about her hopes for Tokyo's future. But this time, she knew it was there not because she felt obligated to, but because she understood what was at stake.

"Yes," Eli told her.

She nodded. "Then let's go."


	22. Destiny Flutters

_"Growing up, my parents worried about me. They were concerned that I was never outgoing enough to speak up in school, and it worried them that my days consisted of school, archery practice, homework, and then bed._

 _But the truth was, how I spent my high school years never really bothered me. If people were going to judge me based on what I chose as my priorities, then they were not worth the time to get to know. I was never the kind of person to force myself on other people in order to become friends._

 _That belief was only cemented when I found the people I knew were my new family. We should never have to put ourselves out there to find human connection, because our connections with other people are formed by what we see. I don't claim to believe in fate, but I do believe that we don't meet the people we choose to surround ourselves with for the rest of our lives by mere chance." —Sonoda Umi_

* * *

Pausing outside the door to her conference room, Nozomi brushed back a strand of stray violet hair that had fallen out from her braid. She half turned her head, feeling inexplicably reassured by the fact that Eli was only a few paces behind her.

"Remember," Nozomi murmured to her in a low voice, "President Tenjoin may try to use his position to intimidate you. He doesn't know you personally, so I expect him to attempt to bully an answer out of you. I know it's not in your nature to back down from people like him, but a reaction is likely what he's hoping for. If he asks you anything, leave it to me to answer him."

Eli nodded, her cerulean gaze serious. "Okay."

She knocked once on the door before she turned the handle.

Nozomi had forgotten just how imposing the district ruler of Osaka was until she spotted him sitting in an armchair, conspicuously close to the seat that belonged to her. She fought the frown that twitched at the side of her mouth, knowing the man had chosen that particular seat for a reason.

"Good afternoon, Toujou-sama," he addressed her, standing up and holding out a large hand in greeting. "I appreciate your hospitality, especially being able to meet me on such a short notice." Behind his oily voice, she could hear the thinly-veiled satisfaction that underlined his words. She saw him noticeably turn his head towards Eli as he looked past her shoulder.

The flash of recognition in his eyes was unmistakeable—even though it lasted perhaps a fraction of a second—before he buried it under a look of mild, disassociated interest. "And who might this be?" he asked her in a spuriously curious tone that didn't fool her at all.

 _There's no doubt about it. He knows who she is and why I brought her with me._ The realization still struck her like a dagger, even though the fact itself was in no way surprising to her.

Her lips twitched into a smile as Nozomi faced him. "Ah. She's one of my information specialists. I'm sure you can appreciate my need for additional security at this point in time, President Tenjoin. I hope that this doesn't inconvenience you?" she asked him sweetly.

The gleam of irritation in his eyes told her that it did, but he had no grounds to stand on and he knew it. "Of course," he said, offering her his hand again. "Why don't we sit down?"

Nozomi met Eli's gaze in a slight, brief turn of her head and gave her a barely-perceptible nod before she took his offered hand. Taking the cue, Eli found herself a spot across the room from them and settled herself in a chair unobtrusively, plugging in her laptop to a wire in the corner of the room.

Trusting that she had the capability to deal with whatever President Tenjoin had brought with him, Nozomi turned her full attention back to the older man sitting in front of her. "So what would you like to discuss with me?" she asked him serenely. _Two can play at this game. He knows I know why he's here._

"Oh, I think you know why," he replied off-handedly, before a more serious, portentous tone entered his voice. "We've discussed this before, but I think it's time we revisited the topic of the railgun module. I'm sure that given… ah, _recent developments_ , you can see why I felt the need to readdress it with you."

She gave him a small, emotionless smile. "I can appreciate the sentiment, but unfortunately, my answer hasn't changed."

He stared intently at her, an interrogative look lurking in his dark eyes as though he could glean her intentions off her facial features alone. Nozomi could not be a hundred percent sure of what was going through his head at the moment, but she was fairly sure that he was trying to decide whether she was serious at the moment or not.

Finally he raised a suspicious eyebrow at her, the features on his face unsure of how to completely arrange themselves. "Even though you're aware of the discussion that's currently going on in your district?"

"I am," she told him smoothly. "However, I don't necessarily see why that should change _my_ answer in regards to your proposal."

Tenjoin made an effort to fight back a derisive laugh. "Toujou-sama, are you saying you don't take into consideration the opinions of the people who live in your district?"

"I would never claim that," she said, the corner of her mouth quirking into a practiced half-smile. "But as I'm sure you can understand, what the majority of the citizens want isn't necessarily synonymous with what the right thing to do is."

The older man leaned forward in his armchair until the rim of his monocle caught the afternoon sunlight filtering through the windows. "Ah yes. I forgot. How _is_ your new law coming along? Have you convinced the citizens of your district to see that it's the _right thing to do_ to give those victims citizenship rights?"

Nozomi met his words with stony silence, hearing the derision in his tone and knowing exactly why he had chosen to bring up that particular point.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eli flinch very slightly at the mention of the policy in question. Instinctively, she knew that at the moment, both of them were thinking about everything that had happened since its announcement that had led them both up to where they were sitting now.

"I don't see what that has to do with our current discussion," she replied delicately.

Tenjoin caught onto her less-than-friendly tone immediately as he sat back with a faint smirk. "You see, Toujou-sama," he told her, as though she didn't know better, "your public image is important. Have you considered that if you approve this railgun module, the citizens of your district might be more receptive to your idea?"

Taking a small breath, Nozomi looked at him in the eye, staring into his beady, chestnut gaze with her emerald one. "Unfortunately, the two aren't mutually exclusive, President Tenjoin," she said calmly. "Wasn't it you who told me that you wanted to use the railgun module to create a new world order? Even if it isn't _your_ intention, I'm sure that it's in the interests of more than a few people to use it to eliminate the victims of Edenra."

She hadn't wanted to call him out on his motives specifically, but he had left her no choice. Tenjoin knew exactly where he wanted to go with this particular conversation, and he hadn't come to her district to hear her tell him no.

To Nozomi's surprise, the man smiled at her. It was genuine—in the sense that he completely believed in what he was going to say next. "I see you're still as naïve as ever, my dear." He crossed his fingers together as he sat forward slightly. "Has it crossed your mind that your father and I developed this plan after years of debate? Why would it be the path that we've chosen if it wasn't the most beneficial for the people that live in our districts?"

She had wondered when Tenjoin was planning on bringing up her father. It was inevitable, and although it was a topic of conversation that she had mentally prepared herself for, Nozomi still felt the familiar empty ache in her chest at the mention of him. _Why?_ she asked herself for what felt like the thousandth time, before she dismissed it. She could wonder about her father's intentions for the rest of her life, and no matter how long she looked, she knew she would never find an answer.

Giving the other district ruler a dry smile, she sat up a little straighter. "It has, as a matter of fact," she informed him lightly. "But you may have also noticed that my father and I are different people. Has it crossed _your_ mind that though we both want what's best for the citizens that live in Tokyo, we may have a different opinion on how to create that future?"

Nozomi did not expect the older man to miss gravity of her words and she was not disappointed when she caught the spark of irritation in his dark eyes.

"Is that why you choose to put your trust in people who have no right to any of the information you choose to share with them?" he challenged her. Behind his perfunctory tone, his impatient frustration at her lack of agreement gleamed. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind as to whom he was referring to, but in the process of trying to throw her, he had revealed a little too much information.

 _He's talking about Eli, of course. Not only am I sure he knows who she and what she does, it's clear that someone must have also told him about the the time we've spent together._

While the most recent development in their relationship was still—to the best of her knowledge—unknown to him, Nozomi knew that for him to deduce that much from whatever information he had been receiving from her district, he had to have been receiving it for months.

"No, actually," she corrected him delicately. "I believe it was also you who told me that I should pay a visit to the outer districts of this city so that I could better understand the situation at hand? Contrary to what you might have been told, I don't choose to share information to anyone I don't think needs it. If there's a cause for you believe otherwise, then I'm afraid I don't like what you're implying."

She had caught his momentary slip-up and they both knew it, as Nozomi watched him suppress an ugly look in an attempt to remain diplomatic. In no hurry for him to come up with a response to her words, she fiddled with her long braid on purpose, carefully averting her gaze under the pretense of giving him privacy to compose himself.

When she looked up next, she found that the contrived politeness of his features had been replaced with something that she could only describe as self-righteous annoyance. He stared at her for a few seconds before standing up abruptly; the motion surprised her, but Nozomi swiftly followed suit.

"You might think that it's still appropriate for you to be playing your little games, Toujou-sama, but the citizens in your city have already spoken," he growled at her. For some reason, the sudden, too-smooth, rational condescension grated against her nerves worse than his earlier oily petulance. "Politics isn't about creating whatever fairy tales you may have been told when you were growing up, but about what the most practical solution is to the problems that present themselves to you. You may not agree with me now, but you'll come to regret that. With or without your support, I _will_ begin the construction of the railgun module next spring." He pretended to check the watch on his large wrist. "That leaves you roughly six months to come up with a solution of your own. Let's hope that you'll still have the authority to present me with that solution when the time comes."

He swept past her in his way to the door; beckoning to his pair of bodyguards on the way, he slammed it shut behind him.

Nozomi narrowed her eyes after him, unaware of the slight tremble in her limbs until she heard Eli come up beside her a few minutes later. Willing herself to calm down, she took a breath in an attempt to calm the hammering pulse in her skull. She turned to face the blonde, a bitter chuckle rising to her lips. "So, what did you think of President Tenjoin in person?"

Eli frowned, and Nozomi knew the momentary lapse in her control hadn't gone unnoticed. However, she was grateful for the fact that Eli didn't immediately press her for an explanation, deciding to humour her instead.

"He doesn't really intimidate me that much more than your advisors," she said slowly, "though he clearly has more resources than I've given him credit for."

Nozomi nodded once. "As we just confirmed."

Furrowing her brows, Eli crossed her arms. "He wasn't trying to record your conversation just now, but he's still obviously getting his information from someone. I'm sure he knows that it's impossible for him to do so remotely, but then, that would mean…" She trailed off, clearly unwilling to voice the thought aloud.

Nozomi finished her sentence for her. "I know. I've suspected for some time that someone close to me has been providing him with the information he wants. But with everything that's happened, I haven't had the time to investigate it properly." The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. "Though I'm not sure it would be a good idea to investigate most of the politicians in this city, at any rate."

"Why not?" Eli asked her. "It wouldn't be hard."

"No," Nozomi agreed, "but as you may have noticed, President Tenjoin didn't intend to let that fact slip on purpose. It was accidental. He knows that as well as you or I, and he may very well cut off that route of communication before we have the chance to investigate it properly. He may not look it, but unlike the businessmen he's been using to conduct his business for him up until this point, he would have been careful not to let that particular trail lead directly back to him. I'm sure he's already thought of a contingency plan for this very scenario, and the effort may not be worth it. After all, to him, I've never been ' _right'_ when it comes to politics, so anything I've done up until this point has been insignificant to him." She shook her head once, breathing out an amused snort. "It just amuses me that after four years, he finally has doubts about his ability to manipulate me into doing what he wants."

Eli's blue eyes were hard—like cut sapphires—as she looked straight at her. "No, he doesn't," she said. "He knows exactly who and what you are. In fact, he's counting on it. It was never about you being right or trustworthy. The way he spoke to you—to him, it's always just been about how to best use you in his game. You are a predicable piece on his board, and he's trying to use that to his advantage. He said that this wasn't the first time you've discussed this, so from the first time you said no, he knew he wasn't going to talk you into anything. That's why he's done all this. It's because he's realized that—if he can't convince you by threatening or intimidating you, he's going to have to change the conditions in Tokyo so that you have no choice _but_ to agree."

Nozomi stared at her, her heartbeat suddenly pounding against her sternum as cold goosebumps prickled her skin.

For perhaps the first time, she realized how incredibly perceptive Eli was. While that perception was sorely lacking in a few departments, the knife edge of intuition in her chest told her that she was right.

Taking a few steps closer to her, Nozomi took a deep breath before breathing it out slowly. "You're right." A small, genuine smile quirked at the corners of her lips as she lightly rested her forehead on Eli's shoulder. "It's a shame that none of my actual advisors have the audacity to tell me something like this without fear of some sort of repercussion."

Eli hummed softly as she looked down. "I've just dealt with too many people who act exactly like him over the years." Her voice hardened as she went on. "But that doesn't diminish the gravity of what he intends to do."

"I know," Nozomi told her gravely. "The only way that I can conceivably tell him no without him interfering in this city again is if we come up with a solution on our own in that time."

 _I… don't know if that's possible. We've had eight years to think of something, but no one's come forward in all that time with solution._

The thought instilled a vague ache in the region of her abdomen. It was a situation that was entirely out of her control, and she knew it. The Ceresis were a problem that scientists and researchers had spent the last eight years searching for an answer to, and Nozomi knew that there was absolutely nothing she could say or do to speed up that process.

She let out a sigh that was part regret, part resignation. _If I had done things differently, would we be running out of time now?_ She knew it was another question that would never have an answer, but she couldn't help it. While she could not deny that Tenjoin's answer to the Ceresis was indeed a solution, she knew that it was not a prospect she wanted to see in any capacity.

 _The futures we want are different. Even if he means to eliminate the Ceresis, who can say who—or what—he intends to eliminate after that? Even if it costs me more than I'm willing to sacrifice, I can't let his idea of the future become a reality._

When she finally met Eli's aquamarine gaze with her own green one, Nozomi understood all too well the emotions in her blue eyes. She wasn't the only one standing in the room with something to lose if Tenjoin's plans indeed came to fruition, and knowledge of that fact only served to increase the stakes that were already towering high above her head.

She was surprised once more when Eli reached for her hand, taking it gently. Though the contact warmed the skin of her cold fingers, it made the chill at her core stand out, slick as wet ice. "I know a certain someone who's been working on a solution for the past few years," Eli murmured grimly. "We just have to hope she'll be able to come up with one before the six months are up."

* * *

Umi unlocked the door of Maki's laboratory and immediately coughed. A faint haze clung to the lights and there was condensation beading against the walls, forming small puddles on the cement floor. The metallic tang of Namidite invaded her sense of smell as she looked around, spotting the redhead in her laboratory gear bent over the corpse of a Ceresis on one of her gurneys, complete with a set of thick rubber gloves and a face mask.

Shutting the door behind her and descending the small flight of steps, she held a hand over her nose and mouth as she approached Maki's workspace. "What… are you doing?"

Maki jerked her head up from what she was doing as she groped around the stainless steel surface for a scalpel. "Oh. It's you."

Setting her bow and arrows down on an unoccupied table, Umi frowned. "Who did you think it was?"

Her friend snorted as she went back to what she was doing. "I don't know," she muttered sarcastically.

Umi pulled out a chair from one of the computer desks and sat down on its edge, unsure if she wanted to know what Maki was working on or not. "You're still annoyed at Eli, aren't you?"

Maki threw her head back and gave a short, bitter laugh. "Who told you I was annoyed?"

Sitting back a little further in her chair, Umi raised an eyebrow. "You are a terrible liar," she remarked.

Slamming down the scalpel in favour of a different, larger blade, Maki snorted again. "For the record, Umi, I don't care what Eli does with her own time. I've already told her what a shitty idea I think—no, I _know_ —it is, so if she's not willing to listen to me, what can I do? Unfortunately, you know as well as I do that I have no control over whatever crappy decisions she chooses to make."

Umi shook her head once. Despite everything that had happened and everything that she had seen, she still had had a hard time believing that what she had learned a few days ago was really happening.

She had met Maki at the gates of the university campus a few days ago, intending to drop something off for Kotori that the brunette had forgotten. It was already autumn, and Kotori had left her jacket at her apartment. Umi did not like the prospect of her fiancée walking home in the morning after her shift with just her scrubs in October, so she had volunteered to go fetch it.

As she was handing Maki the coat, something else caught her eye. A block or two away from the campus gates, Eli was standing near a streetlight, her distinctive blonde hair highlighted in the setting sun against the orange leaves of the trees behind her. Umi had inhaled sharply when she recognized who was with her—it was Toujou.

But instead of the stiff, upright posture she had come to associate with her blonde friend, Umi realized that Eli seemed relaxed—at ease, even—with the district ruler beside her. They were standing far too close to each other for the conversation to be about anything substantial and as she had continued to watch, she saw Toujou reach out and take Eli's hand. The fact that Eli did not flinch away from the contact—as Umi had expected her to do—and returned it, instead, spoke silent volumes, and she heard a low growl from beside her.

Umi half-turned to find that Maki had also swivelled her head around to look at what she was staring at, and she had grimaced inwardly at the positively dangerous look that was creeping over the redhead's features. Before she could react appropriately, though, Maki had strode forward—the crunch of autumn leaves underneath her heels was loud enough to attract the attention of both Eli and Toujou as the two of them looked around.

Maki stopped a few feet away from them, one accusing finger already in the air as she pointed it at Eli. " _You—Her—"_ she spluttered, evidently unable to form full sentences at the moment.

Umi caught up with her before she could say or do something that would inevitably end in her arrest, although she was sure that there was no hiding the blank surprise on her own face.

A small, amused smile had played at the edges of Toujou's mouth. " _Good evening, Nishikino-san."_

Maki ignored her, turning to face Eli instead. _"You can't be serious about this."_

To Eli's credit, she didn't back down in the face of the redhead's anger. _"This doesn't have anything to do with you,"_ she replied.

 _"Uh huh. So when exactly were you planning to tell us about 'this'?"_ Maki had challenged her, ignoring Umi's warning tug on her sleeve as she gestured behind her to include her in the use of the word 'us'.

 _"You know that the moment I do, I'm picking a fight that I'm neither responsible for nor want to have,"_ Eli stated dryly. _"Did you really want to know about this?"_

Whatever personal feelings she had about the situation at hand, Umi could admit that Eli had a point, as Toujou laughed softly at her response.

 _"And I believe that that's my cue to leave,"_ the violet-haired woman said delicately. She raised a hand in a wave as she walked the few feet back to the car that was waiting for her. _"Good luck, Eli,"_ she called over her shoulder before she stepped into the vehicle.

Umi had watched it turn a corner and disappear from sight before she turned around to find her two friends staring at each other, disgusted disbelief evident in Maki's amethyst gaze and annoyed resignation in Eli's blue one.

She held up a hand between them as she finally let go of Maki's sleeve. _"Look, I know there are things that need to be straightened out, but can the two of you not do this here, at least?"_ she implored.

Since the ensuing argument, Maki had blatantly refused to speak to Eli except to make jabs at her new relationship status—and Umi did not foresee that changing anytime soon. She sat back on her chair again as she watched Maki look around her workspace for something else, and decided to change the topic. "So what are you doing?" she repeated.

Maki snorted again as she sat back on her chair with a _thump_ , irritation still colouring her features as she put down her surgical knife. "Someone has to be responsible around here," she muttered darkly. "Honoka's lab finally got back to me with the Namidite I wanted her to modify, so I decided to try it out on this." She pointed at the Ceresis lying on the gurney in front of her.

Umi glanced around them. The small puddles of water on the floor glittered innocently back at her and she could still smell the metal in the air. "Is that why this place is a mess?"

"Stop lecturing me, Umi. There was no other way for me to test it, so why wouldn't I use this room?"

"What exactly _are_ you testing?" Umi asked her, staring at the greying, decomposing body of the Ceresis on the gurney before her.

Maki let out a long-suffering sigh. "Remember when I told you a few weeks ago I found something in those sprays that I thought might work? I sent my data back to Honoka's lab to see if she could modify them into something that would be viable for us to use, so she's just sent back what she came up with—along with a few new samples for me to test this damn thing on." She pointed empathetically to a large, black canister sitting in the corner of the room.

Now that the topic had been brought up, Umi did remember her redheaded friend saying something about discovering something new in her experiments. More often than not, however, the science involved was far over her head and though she would never admit it out loud, she often paid less attention than she should have whenever Maki discussed her work. "The sprays?" she inquired, furrowing her brows as she got up from the chair to inspect the dead Ceresis more closely. "You mean the sprays that are marketed for Ceresis hunting?"

The physician nodded. "Yeah, those." She took in Umi's skeptical look and shrugged. "I know you've told me they're pretty worthless in terms of actual use, but I ran some experiments with them anyways." She picked up a lab notebook lying on a chair near her and flipped through it as she spoke. "They're not useless because their concentration has been calculated wrong. They're useless because they're diluted way too quickly by the air—especially if it's raining or windy—to do what they're supposed to do. So I asked Honoka if she thought it was possible to condense the aerosol into something more substantial that wouldn't be compromised so easily by the environment."

"So, like snow?" Umi wasn't completely sure she followed Maki's train of thought, but the redhead's explanation would certainly account for the amount of precipitation that was currently clinging to the floor and walls of the laboratory.

"A little denser than snow," Maki corrected her, "but yeah, something like that." She brandished her surgical knife again as she replaced her notebook. "This is probably the first time in years Honoka's been bothered to finish something on time because she's so excited, but I suppose we'll find out if she's actually done her work properly this time."

Umi looked over her friend's shoulder, watching her make a lateral incision on the Ceresis's chest with her knife. The tentative elation in Maki's voice had been subdued, but it had been there. In the eight years that she had known the redhead, she could not recall one time when Maki had been anything more than moodily determined when it came to discussing her work.

It was a topic that she knew was sensitive to her, and Umi knew that the past was not something Maki liked to discuss. Her investment into the Ceresis was personal, and she respected that. Giving Maki a wide margin of space to deal with her feelings around the topic might not have been the healthiest way for her friend to cope with the magnitude of the reality that she had to live with, but Umi also knew that Maki would never have let her pity her in any way, shape or form.

 _That wasn't what she was looking for. That wasn't what any of us were looking for._

Umi was well aware of the fact that Maki, at least, had channeled her hurt, frustration, and bitter sense of betrayal into her work. It had seemed like a terrible, cruel paradox at the time, because the more Maki dwelled on her work, the more she was reminded of what had happened to lead her up to that point to begin with. But Maki had been determined, and Umi knew there was nothing she could say that would not somehow belittle how she felt.

 _So for her to sound this anxious about what she's about to find, she must think she finally has an answer. For her sake, and the sake of everyone else, I hope that she does._ Umi did not think that Maki had let herself entertain the thought of finally solving the problem that her father had created just yet, and she held her tongue as she watched the redhead work, knowing that anything she said at this point would only serve to be a distraction.

Her amber eyes widened as the careful incisions in the corpse of the Ceresis revealed disintegrating flesh that was strangely uniform. Neither of them said a word as Maki continued to take measurements and the occasional sample, dropping them onto petri dishes.

Both of them jumped when a ringtone cut through the silence. Umi spun around, spotting Maki's cellphone vibrating on top of one of the computer desks.

"Get that for me, will you?" her friend asked her, peeling off several layers of gloves as she put down her surgical instruments.

Umi made her way over to the desk, and she read the name on the phone's display quickly before she picked it up and handed it over. "It's Honoka," she told her.

Maki rolled her eyes before she answered the call, sitting back down in her chair. "Yes, it's me, Honoka," she said irritably into the phone as she picked up. "No, I'm not done my analysis of the results. Are you sure you did everything properly?"

Shaking her head, Umi had been about to find something else to occupy herself with when Maki gasped; jerking her head back in the direction of her friend, Umi watched the colour slowly drain from her face as she listened to what the other woman was saying on the other end of the phone.

Maki listened for a long time before she spoke. When she did, several long minutes later, her voice was a croak. "And you're positive that this happened on _all_ your samples?"

Dread bounded through Umi's veins at the tone of the redhead's voice as she stood there, unsure of what was happening but knowing that whatever it was, she would not like. The last time that she remembered Maki's voice sounding that way, she had been the person on the other end of the phone on the night that Eli had been attacked.

"You did _what_?" The knuckles of Maki's hands turned white as she spat the words out as though they were thorny barbs. "Honoka, _why_ the _hell_ would you—" Her fingers crept up to press against her face as Maki half-buried her head in one hand, dragging in a slow, ragged breath. "Okay. Okay. Lock up the samples you have, and don't breathe another word of this to anyone else, do you hear me?"

As Maki hung up, Umi noticed that her hands were trembling. She tossed the phone back onto the desk with a _clatter_ before she stood up, clenching the fingers of both hands into fists, her work abandoned.

"What happened?" Umi demanded, fighting the trepidation in her own voice.

Maki looked at her underneath dark red bangs as she started to pace. "Remember how I told you Honoka was the one who made the modifications to the Namidite spray?" When Umi nodded numbly, she continued. "Well, she was also the one that proposed that the best way to distribute this would be by air, because developing something that we would manually have to inject or distribute one by one would defeat the purpose of what we were trying to do. I agreed with her, but I wanted to make sure that what we were developing would be harmless to us. You know, normal humans. And since she wasn't busy, Honoka volunteered to run those tests."

Umi stared at her, confused, because the explanation in redhead's words was contradicting the anguish on her face. "And so…"

"So I let her," Maki went on flatly. "I figured she couldn't do that much harm, because I was the one dealing with the Ceresis samples. But somehow, she got herself some samples from some Edenra victims, from who knows where. She didn't tell me beforehand that she was going to include those in her tests, but she did."

Still unsure of what point Maki was trying to make, Umi took a step closer to her, cognizant of the anxious way her friend was pacing. "I don't understand," she said slowly. "Is it not a good thing that she thought to include the Edenra victims in the tests?"

Finally, Maki looked at her in the eye, her amethyst gaze conflicted and bitter. "Yeah," she ground out. "But in the process, she found that the victims of Edenra react to what we've developed the same way as the Ceresis do." Her last words were poignantly quiet.

For a moment, Umi did not understand what she was trying to say, and it took her several heartbeats to put what Maki had told her with the conversation she had just heard together.

The realization hit her in the chest like a physical blow. "No…" she whispered.

The redhead tilted her head back slightly, her gaze hard and lifeless as she continued. "That's not all. Honoka's already told her lab manager about the results." She paused, sucking in a breath as she relaxed her hands, before shaking her head slowly. "If I had more time, I might've been able to come up with something that didn't affect the Edenra victims, but I know her manager. She won't be able to keep this quiet—and to be honest, why should she?" Maki half-snorted, half-laughed, the sound caustic as acid sludge. "She doesn't have anything to lose. In fact, the fact that we've found something that'll get rid of the victims living in the outer districts will be nothing but a bonus to her."

Umi felt the fingers of her hand tighten around her bow that she had left on the table beside her, but the invisible enemy in front of her was not one she could fight. The back of her knees bumped against the seat of the chair she had been sitting on earlier as finally, Maki stopped pacing long enough for their eyes to meet, the same monstrous, fevered agony etched onto their faces.

Slowly, Umi focused on the redhead's features, finding her burning amethyst gaze as they looked at each other. When she opened her mouth to say the thing that she knew they were both thinking, her voice did not sound like it belonged to her.

"What are we going to tell Eli?"


	23. Always Searching Somewhere

_"There are things out there I believe that can't be changed. I don't necessarily believe in fate, but I believe in the universe's ability to mete out its own justice in the fullness of its own time._

 _I don't know if meeting Eli was one of those things, but I'd like to._

 _My father, on the other hand, believed that we had complete control over our destinies—that our futures were shaped by our hands alone. But after everything that's happened, I can't say that I still believe that. There have been too many things far, far out of our own control that we could never have had the capacity to foresee; even if we were given the chance to do everything again, I'm not sure we would be able to make the correct choices._

 _In the face of that, in a city where the most meaningful thing that remains are our connections with each other, we can only hope for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference." —Toujou Nozomi_

* * *

 _"We need to talk."_

Eli reread the message on her phone from Umi for what felt like umpteenth time as she entered the building that housed Maki's laboratory. It wasn't hard to guess what exactly Umi wanted to talk about, but unfortunately, it was a conversation she didn't really feel like having at the moment and she'd had half a mind to deny the request when she'd first received the text a few hours earlier.

She was well aware of the fact that neither of her friends approved of her relationship with Nozomi, but there was nothing she could do about that. There was nothing she could say that would change how they felt about it, and similarly, there was nothing _they_ could say to change how _she_ felt about it. Still, she was aware that it was a fact that would take them some time to get used to and she could understand that—although it had taken more effort than she really would've preferred to expend to keep her temper around a particular redhead.

Unlocking the door, she found both her friends present in the brightly lit underground room. Maki was hunched over one of her lab notebooks, chewing on the end of one of her pens, while Umi was leaning against one of the computer desks. It was impossible to miss the tense, anxious way that they both held themselves, which only served to fuel her suspicion as she descended the short flight of steps.

She stopped a few feet away from the pair of them, consciously aware of the way Umi was watching her. Eli couldn't immediately read the expression in her blue-haired friend's amber gaze, and she wasn't surprised at all by the fact that Maki seemed to be stubbornly ignoring her.

When neither of her friends spoke, she broke the silence. "So… what is this about?"

She couldn't help the wary glance she cast in Maki's direction, as the redhead finally raised her head, shifting her gaze away from her notes.

Umi gestured tersely to the pair of chairs beside her. "We should sit."

Eli raised an eyebrow in her direction, although she did as she was told. Unease was beginning to prickle underneath her skin—she remembered all too well the last time Umi had asked her to sit down during one of their conversations, and the memory brought a chill that began at her feet and slowly, steadily worked its way upwards.

"This isn't about what you think this is about, by the way," Maki suddenly spoke up. Though a trace of irritation remained in her crisp tone, there was something else lingering underneath it that she couldn't place.

"So what _is_ this about, then?"

Umi took a breath, exchanging a hesitant, meaningful look with the redhead before she spoke. "Maybe you should explain."

Maki glared at her, but the look was less than potent as she stood, clutching her notebook in one hand so hard that her knuckles turned white. Watching her rise, Eli realized that she recognized the expression in Maki's eyes. She had seen it before: once when the three of them had been huddled on the tiled foyer of her family's mansion, and once just before she had left to testify against her father in the district courts.

"Eli." The syllables of her own name sounded strange coming from Maki. Perhaps it was because she hadn't heard it spoken without derision for the better part of a week, but it sounded empty and numb, as though effort had been put into it to make it as minimally intrusive as possible. "I… found something that I'm fairly certain is the solution to the Ceresis."

Eli looked up sharply, her heart at her throat in an instant. "What? You—"

Maki shook her head, a silent plea to let her continue as Eli closed her mouth. "But the Ceresis… aren't the only things that it works on. I still have to confirm the results, but… from what I have so far, it has the same effects on anyone who's been infected by Edenra."

It took her a few heartbeats to process that particular sentence.

" _What_?"

 _No. No._ The distant, clinical part of her mind put together the implications even though the rest of her didn't want to just yet, and Eli felt her fingernails digging into her palms, the pain barely registering against the storm of emotions rising against her chest. "You…"

She couldn't finish her sentence. Whether it was because she didn't want to, or because she was incapable of doing so, she didn't know.

Maki closed her eyes; even though she didn't want to see the pain in her amethyst gaze, Eli knew it was there. "No. But… this isn't up to me anymore. I… wasn't the one who did the tests to get those results, and I should've been. If I had, I wouldn't have said anything until I found something that only affects the Ceresis."

Eli shook her head once, hearing the words but somehow unable to comprehend what they meant. "I don't understand."

"Honoka." Maki said the name as though it was an explanation, her voice listless and subdued. "Honoka was the one who got those results. She was the one who modified the Namidite into something that I thought would work, so she volunteered to help me run some tests. If I'd known that she would be _this_ careless and blabber about the fucking results to everyone she met that afternoon, I would've said no." Maki paused, breathing out a sigh of frustration that came out as half-growl, half-groan. "But… she's told enough people that I'm sure this will be brought to the government at some point sooner or later. I… don't have the authority to stop that. Eli, I'm sorry."

If nothing else, it was the gentleness in Maki's voice that caught her where the brittle, disdainful sarcasm and frustration from the previous week wouldn't; Maki was so many things, but gentle was not one of them, just like the redhead pretended she was never vulnerable—unless someone was hopeless. In a way, it was almost like she had come back to the beginning: sitting hopeless and almost alone in the midst of a situation that she had no control—and would never have control—over.

Eli tried to force herself to stand, but the feat felt impossible. Her throat ached and her hands clenched over and over, nails unable to find purchase on the cold sweat of her palms. She tried to scrape the words out of the back of her throat, but they wouldn't come.

She ended up staring at Maki, dizzy and sick.

There was a part of her that should've been angry. Realistically, Eli knew that her friends were _expecting_ her to be angry. The apprehensive, nervous way that they held themselves when she had arrived made sense to her now in perfect, lifeless clarity. But even digging down deep into the wasteland of emotions that had somehow settled into her lungs, she couldn't find any anger. What was there for her to be angry at? Even if it would be so much easier for her to blame Maki, she couldn't.

Silence wrapped around them like fog, thick and unforgiving. Eli did not think she had the capability to speak—or cry—at the moment. It was probably for the best. There was nothing she could say right now she knew she wouldn't regret at some unknown point in the future, and there was absolutely no point in crying.

Finally, Umi broke it as she leaned forward to grip her shoulder—an uncharacteristic gesture of physical reassurance. "Eli, listen to me." Her quiet voice trembled, but strangely, there was purpose behind it. "You need to go and speak with Toujou-sama."

Eli looked up at her underneath her blonde bangs, unable to process what Umi was trying to tell her to do. "About what?" she mumbled wearily. _Is it because neither of you want to deal with this?_ Even if she had the courage to voice that thought aloud, her throat wouldn't let her. "So she can feel sorry for me?"

"No." Maki took a step towards her, crinkling the pages of her notebook between her fingers until she set it down on the table beside her. "You do realize that this is going to have to pass through her eventually, right? Whatever this district decides to do, she needs to agree. You need to speak to her before this reaches her by some other means."

When Eli stared at her, still unsure of what she was trying to say, Maki threw up her hands. "Look, I need more time." She enunciated the words slowly, the syllables heavy and weighted. "You know as well as I do that the politicians in this city are going to want us to put what we've found to use as soon as possible the moment they find out about this. The only person who can delay that is her. If we're going to find a better solution, she's the only one who can give us the time that we need."

Eli shook her head slowly. "No," she said, the words muffled, her voice breaking. _She's… already in such a difficult position. She can't do this for my sake._ But she knew she couldn't say those words out loud; out of respect, if nothing else, she knew it was something she had no right to reveal. "She can't just…"

Umi stood up. "You… don't know that. Regardless, she has to know, whether or not she can do something about it. Would it not be better if she heard it from you, rather than someone else?"

Maki crossed her arms as she leaned back against one of her gurneys, the irritation that coloured her voice softened by the crease of concern around her eyebrows. "Eli, just go talk to your girlfriend, okay?" She snorted softly as though the term personally offended her. "She's the most powerful person in Tokyo. That has to count for something, right?"

* * *

"I don't know what to do," Eli repeated numbly. The words felt forced and meaningless, the last vestiges of control she had over a situation that she had never had any over to begin with.

They were sitting outside on a stone bench. It was colder now that the sun had set, but it was the only place that she could guarantee that they would not be overheard. Eli wasn't sure what the source of the icy chill on her skin was: the stiff wind that threatened to strip the remaining leaves from their branches, or the heavy knowledge that had settled into the region of her stomach like a stone.

Nozomi was silent for a long time—so long, in fact, that Eli wasn't sure if she should have said anything to begin with. "I'm sorry," she mumbled automatically. "I shouldn't have bothered you with this."

"No." Turning slightly so that she could face her, the violet-haired woman reached out and took her hand. "Your friends were right when they told you you had to tell me."

"But, there's nothing you can do," Eli argued back. "If it's something that this entire city wants you to do, you can't just say no because of me."

"You're thinking too far ahead," Nozomi told her. "You may be right that my advisors and the rest of the politicians in this city will want me to approve of this, especially when it would eliminate the need to respond to President Tenjoin, but we haven't gotten to that point yet. Even if they were to find out about this tomorrow, it would still take them some time to come up with a way to present it to me. All things considered, I don't anticipate a lobby about this for another week or two. And remember," she added, "whatever they come up with, I still have to agree to."

"But… you _will_ have to agree… don't you?" _I know what the answer to this question is. I shouldn't even be asking it, but I can't help myself._

The poignant sorrow in the verdant gaze looking back at her was unmistakable. "Yes. I think so." Nozomi did not elaborate, but there was no need to—the political situation in the district could not have more clear to them both.

It felt surreally ironic that the solution to every single problem that had divided the city over the past year would present itself to them like this. Eli knew all too well how the rest of the district felt about the Ceresis, Edenra, and its victims. Even if her opinion held more weight than theirs, she knew it would be impossible for her to expect Nozomi to base her decision off of that alone. _After all, I was the one who told her she couldn't throw away everything she's worked for for the sake of one person._

 _Why?_

It was a question she knew no matter how long she looked, she would never find an answer to. Knowing that particular fact did not make her feel any better, but it was better than admitting, even to herself, that there was nothing she could do.

Nozomi's fingers worked at hers, prying them loose from their cold, stiff positions as Eli finally mustered the courage to look back at her. "Have you… spoken with your sister recently?" she asked her gently.

Eli closed her eyes. "Yes," she answered, forcing her voice to behave. "I have."

The other woman frowned slightly at her reply. "How did it go?"

Although the question was meant to be unobtrusive, it pressed against her chest like a blade. She had kept what had happened to herself, not because she intended to keep it that way, but because she hadn't known how to have that particular conversation. She still didn't know how to have that particular conversation, but it was far too late for her to avoid the topic now.

"Not well," she admitted at last. It was like every syllable of the two word sentence burned her tongue as she said it, and she tried not to falter under Nozomi's intent green gaze.

* * *

Eli had gone to see her sister not long after Nozomi's last meeting with Tenjoin. It hadn't exactly been planned, but it wasn't a meeting she was going to refuse.

However, unlike the previous times that they had met, Alisa had insisted on meeting her near the waterfront of Tokyo Bay. She had refused to elaborate in the short text that she had sent her, instead giving her the directions to a still-standing apartment that had been abandoned eight years previously.

When Eli had finally arrived, she found her sister already waiting for her, leaning against the cold stone wall with her arms crossed and straw-blonde hair tucked underneath the hood of her cloak. Anything she might've wanted to say to her was stopped short by the expression on Alisa's face before her sister realized she was there. It was a troubled look that she knew far too well, even though it had been four years since she'd seen it in person.

"What's wrong?" The question was instinctual.

Alisa had jerked her head up in surprise, not having heard her approach. Eli saw her open her mouth to voice the first syllable in the word 'nothing' before she closed it. "I don't know," she said, a heavy sigh creeping in at the end of her sentence. "Maybe this wasn't a good idea."

Eli had looked at her, unsure of what she meant. "What… are you talking about?"

"Just thinking, I guess." Alisa shrugged. "Maybe it's not a good idea for us to keep meeting like this. I mean, what's the point?"

"What are you talking about?" she repeated, ignoring the way the words held onto her throat like grating sandpaper.

"I don't know," Alisa told her. "It's not the same anymore, you know? Ever since that bomb." Bitterness corroded the end of her sentence like acid as she continued. "I always used to think that it was possible this district could change. Before all that happened, I really believed it was possible. But now, I know it was stupid of me to even hope that the people who live in the city could ever move past what's happened. We're not people they want anything to do with—in fact, to them, we're not even people, just something else they don't want in their district."

Eli had wanted to argue, but she knew anything she could've said was a lie. There was nothing she could say to deny her sister's claims, because she had seen everything that she'd talked about for herself.

"That's why I said we should meet here instead," she went on, tossing the explanation out carelessly like it no longer mattered. "It wouldn't have gone well if I met you where we met last time."

"For me… or for you?" Eli asked her quietly.

Alisa laughed, the sound dry and derisive. "For both of us."

Both of them looked around at the sound of the door opening behind them. Eli's eyes widened when a familiar, silver-haired girl stepped into the dimness of the apartment, dirty, calloused fingers holding her jacket closed around her.

It was the same girl that she had met on more than one occasion by Tokyo's waterfront.

"I didn't know you were going to be here today," the girl greeted her sister, taking a few steps towards them.

"I didn't know you were going to be here either," Alisa replied.

Eli was unprepared for the moment that the girl took her hand gently as a form of greeting. She had expected to have to force herself not to flinch like the previous time, but to her surprise, her body did not react to the sudden touch as she might've expected it to.

"Oh," the girl said softly. "You're that pretty lady from before."

Alisa narrowed her eyes at them skeptically. "I didn't realize that the two of you knew each other."

The silver-haired girl smiled. "I told you that someone stopped to help me more than once while I was in Tokyo… remember?"

Alisa looked sharply in her direction. "That was _you_?"

Eli met her gaze, unable to neither help nor rein in the hurt in her chest at the surprise in her sister's tone, and nodded once. "Yes."

That was the only time that afternoon she saw her sister smile, a fleeting expression that seemed to longer for only a heartbeat before it was gone.

"How's Yui?" Alisa asked the girl, concern clouding her gaze as she turned towards her.

For the first time since she had entered, Eli saw her fix her gaze on the floor. "She's… not getting any better."

Although the name was unfamiliar, Eli remembered enough of the conversation that they'd had at the roadside to guess who they were talking about. "Is that your sister?" she asked tentatively. "What happened?"

The girl looked up at her. "You remembered," she said, the words gently wondrous and bittersweet before they broke under the stride of something much more desolate. "She was caught in the bomb blast. The clinic in the outer district did what they could, of course, but… it wasn't enough. There are never enough resources to help everybody. I know it can't be helped, but… sometimes I wish I could've given anything for things to be different," she finished quietly.

Unsure of what to say—or what was even appropriate for her to say—Eli stood there. There was no way for her to express the weight of the helplessness pressing against her sternum and she had no right to share in their sorrow, because she lived in a world that was completely different from the reality the people in front of her knew. Whether she wanted to or not, she knew it was a fact that could not be changed.

Noise outside the apartment broke her out of her thoughts as Alisa rushed to the grimy, broken window to look outside. Eli watched her stiffen very slightly, reading the tense set of her shoulders as her sister turned around.

"You should go, sis," Alisa told her, her voice terse, emotionless, and utterly flat.

"But—"

Her sister cut her off. "No. Have you forgotten where you are? Soon, it's not going to be safe out there. It's just not worth it for you to stay here any longer. Get going," she repeated.

Herding her towards the door, Alisa turned back once, tossing her final words over her shoulder. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to come back. It's not worth it," she said again. "Especially if something were to happen to you now."

* * *

A cold breeze circled her feet, dragging fallen leaves and dust with it, but Eli barely felt it through the ice that seemed to have replaced her skin as she retold the encounter. It was impossible to remain emotionless in the face of recounting what had happened, but a thick layer of numb exhaustion had settled over her, dimming the familiar stirrings of helpless grief that the memory brought back to the surface.

Nozomi had listened to her in silence. What the district ruler was thinking was impossible to tell in the gathering darkness, but Eli did not particularly care to try at the moment. Her limbs felt like they weighed more than they had any right to weigh, and the memory of what had happened only served to increase their gravity.

"Are you… planning on going to talk to her?"

The question was impossibly gentle, but that did not help. "I have to, don't I?" she asked bitterly. "Even if she doesn't want to see me again, it's not like I have a choice."

The violet-haired woman looked at her, the intensity in her verdant gaze startling her out of the disquiet of her thoughts. "No. You always have a choice."

Eli shook her head empathetically. "If I'm not going to be the one who tells her, then who will?" _Who else in this city would ever voluntarily decide to make that choice?_ "Unless you're trying to tell me that you would rather no one told her at all? That's—"

"That wasn't what I meant," Nozomi interrupted. "But no one would blame you if you said that you didn't want to go." One of her hands wrapped around Eli's wrist, surprisingly strong.

"What I want doesn't matter," Eli told her quietly. "There are hundreds of things that I wish I could have, but I can't, because none of them are possible. You and I both know that it has to be me." She paused. "It's… the right thing to do."

"I know," Nozomi said softly. "And I respect you for that." An emotion lingered in her gaze for perhaps a heartbeat, too short for Eli to decipher what it was. "Do you want me to go with you?" she asked suddenly.

Eli looked up at her underneath her bangs, surprised, before shaking her head once. "No. It's… probably better if I go alone. But… thanks." She reached out, returning the gentle grip on her fingers. _I mean it._

"Alright." Nozomi stood up, straightening out her dress and brushing back messy strands of violet hair from her face as she did so. Unexpectedly, she turned to look back at her, a razor-keen intensity entering her emerald gaze. "But if you're not back—or if I don't hear from you—by an appropriate time, I _will_ be sending someone after you."

Despite the weight of everything that had happened, and underneath the numbness that blunted her nerves, a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"Okay."


	24. The Future That We Hold Dear

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** MIRAI ( _Future_ ) - GARNiDELiA

Okay so also like, if out of this entire fic there is only _one_ music suggestion I throw at the beginning of my chapters that you end up listening to, it should be this one. I highly recommend looking up the lyrics to this song (as I can't link them on this site), as by some force of the idol gods I think this song and this fic were meant to be. Call it a NozoEli song of choice, but in reality it suits everything that happens this chapter.

* * *

 _"For the first time in my life, I don't want to move forward. For even just a moment, I need tomorrow and all its terrible possibilities to stay on the other side of the door._

 _But that isn't how this universe works. It just… it feels like for everything that happens that gives me hope that tomorrow will be better than the piece of time we call today, something else will happen to remind me that we don't live in a world like that._

 _I will never have the courage to say this out loud, but… if I hadn't gone looking for my sister, would any of this have happened? Is that possibility worth everything that's happened since then? Do I want to put the most meaningful thing that's happened to me for the last eight years up as the price for that possibility? If I'm supposed to have an answer to that question, I know that I don't. I don't think I ever will." —Ayase Eli_

* * *

"Maki-chan." Honoka spoke her name with uncharacteristic seriousness as Maki swivelled around to look at her from where she was sitting, her head half-buried in her notes, disentangling one hand from her messy red hair.

"What?"

Honoka held up the beaker in one gloved hand. "I really don't think this is going to work."

She eyed the liquid in the beaker suspiciously. "We can't titrate that down further?"

The lab technician heaved a tiny sigh that did not escape her notice. "I can, but if the concentration goes any lower than this, it won't work on the Ceresis. I told you, it's like titrating an acid base concentration. There's a very specific concentration that basically determines whether or not it's effective on the Ceresis, and I've tried everything that you came up with last time."

"Then you can keep trying," Maki told her, trying—and failing—not to let her frustration show through her voice.

Honoka opened her mouth to argue before she closed it, catching the expression on her face. She guessed that the orange-haired woman still felt guilty about blurting out the results of their previous tests without her giving the okay to do so; otherwise, Maki knew that she wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise.

She turned her attention back to her notes sprawled in front of her. Staring at the numbers and hastily scribbled anecdotes did not help, because they weren't the answer to the problem in front of her. As much as she would've liked to get some fresh air to clear her head, she couldn't even leave her office during the daytime without one of the other physicians making a point to stop her in the hallway to congratulate her on finding "the cure."

 _It's not the cure. Unless we figure out a way for it to be harmless to everyone who lives in this district, I can't call it that._ Maki was sick and tired of the unwanted attention that she had unwittingly brought upon herself, but moreover, she was sick and tired of trying to explain why she still spent most of her time shut up in her office at work, especially when she knew that the people who asked her that question would never understand.

Her problems were only compounded by the fact that she knew they were running out of time. She had already been contacted by several politicians more than once over the past two weeks, and while she had managed to deflect the majority of their questions and requests at the time, she knew that she couldn't avoid them forever.

"I'm going to get some coffee," she muttered, half to herself over the sound of Honoka's tinkering. She eyed the three empty cups that lay scattered around her workplace: her caffeine intake was directly proportional to the amount of stress she was under.

"Don't get caught by the reporters," Honoka called after her as Maki made her way to the door. She scowled, knowing that the media was amongst the _last_ group of people she wanted to run into that morning.

Zombie-like, she stumbled to the cafeteria of the hospital, intent on finding the strongest cup of coffee it had to offer. Still deep in thought about what she and Honoka could still try, Maki almost didn't notice that she had nearly walked into someone.

"Sorry," she mumbled, before her vision refocused.

Maki found herself staring at a head of black hair, the short woman's hands resting on her hips. "I've been trying to get your attention forever," Yazawa snapped at her. "What, do you not pay attention to what's going on around you or something?"

Maki hadn't seen the woman in question since she'd performed the surgery on her brother. When his name disappeared off her patient list, she'd assumed it was because his care had been transferred to an outpatient team. She hadn't bothered to give it a second thought because quite frankly, she'd been glad that she didn't have to deal with his sister anymore.

"You might have remembered that I'm a busy person," Maki told her dryly, staring past her shoulder and wondering when it would be acceptable for her to cut the conversation short.

"I _know_ you're a busy person," the black-haired woman retorted. "I don't need a reminder, thank you." Suddenly sheepish, she looked down at her boots, scuffling the toe of one over the other. "Anyways, I guess… I just wanted to say that I didn't have the opportunity to thank you in person, that's all. He's doing really well now, you know."

Taken aback by the sudden reticence, Maki stared incredulously at her. "I'm sorry?"

Yazawa huffed. "You heard what I said. Don't make me repeat myself." She dug in her coat pocket for something, as she pulled her face mask back over the lower half of her face.

"Here," she said suddenly, thrusting a piece of paper at her.

"What is this?" Maki asked her, fighting to keep the suspicion out of her voice. She'd been about to say that she didn't normally accept things from patients, before she kept that thought to herself—saying it out loud would only invite trouble she wasn't in the mood to deal with at the moment.

"A business card," the other woman told her, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You've given me one already," Maki told her automatically.

"Yeah? I gave you _my_ business card." Yazawa shook the small piece of paper in her hand empathetically. "But my siblings help my mom run a café. You know, they'd actually really appreciate it if you showed up so they could thank you in person."

Not for the first time around the black-haired woman, Maki found herself shocked into speechlessness. Ingrained social etiquette demanded that she take the thin piece of paper and she held onto it between two fingers, her hand still extended because she was unsure of what to do with it.

"You better still have my number," Yazawa grumbled. "I don't have time to go around printing more business cards for people who lose them." She paused, awkwardly looking to one side. "A-Anyways, I guess I'll give you permission to give me a call when you know, you're not busy saving lives and doing research or whatever. I'll take you—since you look like you're one of those people who'd get lost in Tokyo."

With that, she rehoisted her bag over her shoulder and turned to leave. Maki watched her collect her younger brother from where he was sitting at a table before the pair of them left the hospital cafeteria through the doors that led to the parking lot.

Completely forgetting her original task of getting coffee in the cafeteria, she turned around to retrace her footsteps back to her office. The piece of thin cardboard in her hand felt like it weighed much more than it should've, but surprisingly, it wasn't in a bad way. Although she was loath to admit it, the quick, cold sting of Yazawa's words hadn't had the effect that she would've anticipated that they had on her.

Maki slipped the business card into the pocket of her lab coat.

* * *

Outside the glass of Kotori's apartment window, Umi watched the late autumn wind tug relentlessly at the leaves of the trees outside. Soon, she knew their boughs would be weighed down by snow.

Soft footsteps behind her announced Kotori's arrival, her hands occupied with two teacups. "You said Eli-chan was going today?" she asked.

Wordlessly, Umi took one of the cups from her and nodded.

"Are you worried?" her fiancée observed, moving so that she stood beside her at the balcony window.

"A little," she admitted truthfully.

"You could have gone with her if you're worried about her safety, you know," Kotori said gently. "I wouldn't have minded. Most of the wedding things have been settled anyways. There isn't much left for us to do."

Umi shook her head. "She wanted to go alone. It didn't feel right for me to insist." She paused, biting her lip as she searched for the right words to say. "To be honest, I'm more worried about what Alisa might say to her, as opposed to what might happen while she's out there. I'm certain that Toujou-sama will have made sure that she won't be in any physical danger."

Kotori smiled, the gentle expression tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I think they're good for each other, don't you?"

Umi looked sideways at her fiancée, hearing the earnest undertone of her words and unsure if she agreed with it. "I don't know," she finally said. "I _do_ think that it's about time that she found someone. For herself, I suppose. I… just hope that she isn't making a mistake."

What was left unsaid was that on top of everything else that seemed to be coming down around them, there was no room for mistakes. If it turned out that her relationship with Toujou _was_ one _,_ then Umi could easily see Eli shutting out the rest of the world and burying herself in whatever unhealthy job offer she had at the time.

"You don't like her? Toujou-sama, I mean." Kotori inquired curiously, tilting her head to one side.

"It's more the fact that I don't _know_ her," Umi replied tersely. "I know that really, it isn't any of my business. Even if it was, I know that I have no control over what Eli does or the choices she makes. She is perfectly capable of making rational, mature decisions, and I want to respect that. But… out of the three of us, she is also the one who is the most prone to making decisions based on her emotions, and because of that, I just don't want her to regret making the decision she did. That's all."

Kotori clasped her hands behind her back as she set down her empty teacup. "You know," she said musingly, "I'm pretty sure Toujou-sama knows that. _You_ might not have noticed because you've known her for so long, but… Eli-chan is a pretty difficult person to approach, even on a casual basis. If there wasn't something that Toujou-sama genuinely liked about who she was, then I'm sure she wouldn't have put forth the effort to get to know her."

She paused, taking in the look on her face and reading it efficiently. "I know that you and Maki-chan don't like most politicians, but before all of this, neither did Eli-chan… right?"

When Umi shook her head, the brunette continued. "Then I'm sure that something must've happened for her to change her mind about Toujou-sama specifically. If she doesn't want to say what it was, then that's up to her. But you know, I don't think we should judge Toujou-sama based on what we see of her from the media. There's more to a person than just the side they choose to present to the public, and I think Eli-chan would appreciate it if you trusted her and the choices that she's made. After all, even if this _does_ turn out to be a mistake, are you going to treat her any differently because of it?"

"No, of course not!" Umi told her, taken aback by the fact that Kotori would even suggest the thought.

Her fiancée smiled at her, the golden expression in her eyes soft. "Then where's the problem? You know her well enough to trust that she's not making a mistake, and you know that you're going to be there for her even if it is."

Umi blinked at her, taking in Kotori's warm, assuring demeanour as she slowly let out a breath that she had not realized she had been holding. "You're right," she acquiesced finally.

The brunette smiled again, reaching up to press a fingertip to Umi's nose. "When it comes to things like this, when am I ever wrong?"

* * *

"So what's this about?" Alisa leaned back against the cold stone side of the fallen apartment block. "I thought I told you that it wasn't safe for you around here anymore."

The wind chill seemed to contribute to the icy dismissiveness in her sister's voice as Eli looked back at her. In the narrow space of the alley between two abandoned buildings that they were currently standing in, it felt both too close and too far at the same time.

"You did," she replied quietly, unable and unwilling to rise to the bait, knowing that if she responded accordingly to the aggression they would get absolutely nowhere. "But something's happened."

"Really?" Alisa quirked an eyebrow at her. "What would that be?"

She took a breath. Eli had rehearsed in her head for the better part of two weeks what exactly she was going to say when the moment was finally upon her, but somehow, it still felt woefully inadequate. The syllables were unfamiliar shapes on her tongue and her voice felt like it was stuck in her throat.

"Maki thinks she's found something that will eliminate the Ceresis. But… it has the same effect on anyone who's been infected with Edenra. She's… doing everything she can to modify it, but she might not have enough time to come up with something before the district decides to use it anyways."

The words were hollow, and they hung there in the space between them. Eli waited for her sister to react—to do _something_ —but Alisa just stood there. Underneath the hood of her cloak, her expression was unreadable.

Long minutes stretched between them in silence, only interrupted by the sound of the wind rushing around the ruins of the empty, fallen buildings, melancholy and lonely.

"Why are you telling me this?" Alisa asked her in a low voice at last. Her words hardened. "What are you looking for? Permission?"

Though the response tightened around her windpipe like a garrotte, Eli forced her throat to cooperate. "No. I just thought… you had a right to know."

"Well, now I do," Alisa told her. She looked around, sweeping the hood of her cloak off her head and shaking out her hair in the early winter wind. "But for what it's worth, I think it's a good idea."

Eli stared at her. She had foreseen the anger and the disappointment—and had even prepared for the fact that it could be directed at her. Out of all the reactions that she had anticipated, that had not been one of them.

"Why?" The question left her lips in a croak. She could not understand the elated trepidation that hovered just underneath Alisa's words and she waited for the endless, weightless drop that she was sure was coming.

There was always a second, a half-heartbeat, when you knew what had happened, but your nerves hadn't told your brain yet that you were supposed to be in agony. It didn't matter what the ammunition was—there was always that last, painless moment while she waited for her body to catch up, dread pooling at the base of her spine.

Alisa swept her right arm around them, gesturing to the alleyway in which they were standing and the streets beyond. "Because this isn't living. When we're too afraid to step outside and run into the bounty hunters that come from the city every morning and desperate enough to fight each other for just the scraps of resources around here, would you call any of that living? I told you the last time that we met that there's no way that this city and the people in it will ever be able to change. They can't stop repeating the mistakes they've made in the past because they're not the ones paying for it. We are. This isn't living," she repeated. "This is just another way to die."

She shook her head, a hundred different arguments rising to the back of her throat. "But—"

Her sister took a few steps towards her, feet gritting in the dust and grime of the asphalt beneath them until Eli was convinced that Alisa could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest underneath her coat. Her lungs felt as though a knife had been slipped between her ribs and her throat burned.

They were close enough for her to see Alisa's expression soften by the tiniest margin. "I know you want to save everyone," Alisa murmured, cutting her off. "That's just the kind of person you are. But that… isn't possible. Not in the world we live in. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made."

"No," she protested, reaching out a hand.

Alisa let her grip her elbow before she placed her bare hand on top of hers. "We—everyone that lives here, at least—have all been waiting for the end. It's just another thing that we have to accept, because it's inevitable. We just don't know when it will be. Some people might prefer it that way, but… I don't. If the city goes through with this, at least I'll know that it was _for_ something. That's better than not knowing how long it'll be until the end, and not knowing what will happen when it does come."

"No," Eli said again, unable to put the wild, barren ache in her chest to words.

"You're friends with Toujou-sama, aren't you?" Alisa asked her, pushing the conversation onward even though Eli knew her sister knew there was no way she was ready to. When she nodded numbly once, unable to expound on that particular detail, Alisa went on. "You told me before that she wanted to know what the people who live here think about her decisions. Well, I'll tell you this: I think she'd be stupid not to go through with this."

She closed her eyes, not wanting to hear what would come next. "Alisa…"

Cool, slender fingers pried her hand away from where it was resting on Alisa's elbow as her sister held it, the contact surprisingly gentle. It was silent for a few minutes before she spoke again.

"You know, I'm glad you came and told me. Really," she insisted. "I know this isn't the answer you wanted to hear, but whether you hear it today, or three months from now, it's not going to change." She glanced around, watching the light snowflakes beginning to fall around them. "I should go. You should too," she said pointedly.

Letting go of her hand, Alisa reached for her hood behind her. Tugging it over her head, she took a few steps to where the alleyway met the road that led back into the city, pausing just before she reached the intersection. "Let me know when you guys have made the decision. I'd like to see you before… you know," she said quietly over her shoulder, before she turned and was gone.

Something huge and monstrous seemed to be fighting to claw its way out of her chest as Eli stood there, staring after the spot where her sister had left. Her fingernails dug into the icy skin of her palm, but the sensation barely registered as the snow began falling more thickly from the grey skies above.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket, but Eli didn't feel like picking it up. She had sneaking suspicion she knew who it was, but right now, she was far too worn down by the short, ten minute conversation to speak to anyone.

Without a clear destination in mind, she left the alleyway on numb legs. With her coat pulled up around her neck and the worsening weather, she doubted that anyone in the outer district would recognize who she was—or wasn't.

She didn't want to go home, knowing that Umi, at the very least, would be waiting anxiously for her return. The other option that she had didn't seem very appealing either, because she knew that back at the district building, Nozomi would be waiting for her as well. Eli didn't know if she had the strength to face either of them at the moment.

Forty-five minutes later, Eli found herself standing at the beachside of Tokyo Bay. The snowfall from earlier had stopped as quickly as it had come, though traces of the white powder still lingered on the rocks that led down to the water. A heavy fog had settled over the bayfront, obscuring her vision of the outer districts beyond.

For almost an hour, she wandered along the water's edge, breathing in the cold, misty air in hopes that it would somehow drive away the tumour of anguish that had spawned at the back of her throat and the wall of denial and fear in her chest that had engendered it. Finally, too cold and too exhausted to continue, she stopped, sitting down on a large chunk of a tree that had washed ashore.

 _Why?_

The singular question reverberated in her mind as her phone buzzed again. A memory surfaced from underneath the weight of everything that had happened that afternoon, and numbly, she reached for her phone in her pocket, knowing that things would only escalate for the worse if she continued to refuse to pick up.

"Hello?" Her voice rang flatly against the low ringing in her ears.

"Eli? Where are you?" Surprise prickled at her skin when she recognized Nozomi's slightly anxious voice on the other end of the line. Somehow, when the violet-haired woman had told her that she would be overseeing her visit to the outer district that afternoon, she hadn't expected the district ruler to call her personally.

"The bay," she replied, aware of how tired and lifeless she sounded.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments. "Alright. I'll be there to pick you up." Nozomi did not leave room for a possible argument as she hung up.

True to her word, less than half an hour later, Eli heard soft footsteps on the sand behind her. She didn't turn around to acknowledge them, knowing that there was only one person in the district who had both the resources and the concern to find out where exactly she was at the moment.

Nozomi did not ask her what was wrong, presumably because she had already put together what had happened on the way there; instead, the district ruler sat down on the other side of the log, careful to leave a foot or two of space in between them.

"Would you like to talk about it?" she asked gently.

Eli shook her head. "There's... nothing to talk about," she replied listlessly. Her hands were gripping the fabric of the material over her knees so hard they were white, despite the cold. She tried to control the fine tremble that had taken over her fingers, but they wouldn't stop.

A gloved hand came to rest over her own, warm and reassuring. "What did she say?"

It was the quiet insistence in Nozomi's voice that finally undammed the emotions that had bottled up in her chest, digging out the pain from where she'd tried to banish it to. "She thinks…" Her voice faltered, and she had to try again. "She thinks we should go through with it." The words died out to a hoarse whisper, and that was when the tears began to fall.

Eli hated crying. It was useless and selfish and weak—and it would do nothing to solve the problem at hand.

But she was also consciously aware that there was nothing _anyone_ could do to solve the problem at hand. It wasn't for the lack of trying and it wasn't because the people she knew hadn't done enough. Both Maki and Nozomi had done more for the fact than she had had any right to expect, and she knew it wasn't fair for her to expect that somehow, they would solve the problem for her.

The fact that Alisa seemed to have accepted what was going to happen only made things worse. _It would've been easier if she was angry at me because of what I told her. At least it would've made sense. Instead, I feel like she… didn't want to owe me or make me regret it._ It hurt more because she knew Alisa had meant the things she had said. There had been no mistaking the desolate bitterness in her sister's voice when she'd spoken about the hopelessness of living in Tokyo's outer districts, and Eli knew that the words had been offered as an explanation.

 _But… understanding_ why _doesn't fix everything. It means the difference between being angry and being sad about what went wrong. That's all._

Gentle arms coaxed her out of her stiff, upright posture as Nozomi moved to sit beside her. Eli offered her no resistance as she drew her into a tight embrace and let her cry.

They stayed that way for an unknown amount of time, huddled together against the icy bite of the coming winter wind. Slowly, Eli let the steady, even breathing of the woman beside her calm the erratic rise and fall of her chest. She was out of tears, but pain roiled just beneath the surface.

She felt Nozomi softly press her lips against her forehead.

"I'm sorry," Nozomi said to her quietly. "It seems like no matter what you do, you're destined to pay the price for things other people have done." She paused, drawing in a breath and letting out a sigh. "I'm sorry that I don't have the power to change what will happen."

"It's… not your fault," Eli finally mumbled, her voice shaky and raw.

"No, but I feel responsible nonetheless. It's not right that no matter what happens, the only thing you can do is accept it."

Surprising them both, Eli choked out a dry laugh that sounded so weary she felt the violet-haired woman freeze at the sound. "Whether I want to or not, I have to," she said in a low voice, hating the burn scraping the back of her throat again as she worked to swallow. "Everyone else seems to have done so, except for me."

She felt a hand gently touch her cheek, brushing away what remained of her tears. "I'm not going to tell you things are going to be okay," Nozomi murmured. "I don't think that's what you want to hear. But it _is_ okay if you don't want to talk right now. When you are—whenever that may be—I'll be there to listen, like you were for me. You'll get through this. _We_ will get through this."

Eli let her head drop, resting her forehead on Nozomi's shoulder, unable to muster the strength to look at her and feeling far too drained to even try. "I'm so tired," she said at last, hands trembling again as she curled them into fists.

She knew Nozomi was aware she didn't mean the somnolent kind of tired.

"I know," the violet-haired woman responded softly, placing a hand in her hair, pushing back the bangs that had fallen into her face. Eli did not protest when she pulled her closer. The empty chasm inside her yawned, baring its teeth as Nozomi took one of her hands, prising her fingertips away from where they were digging into her palm. The warmth of her fingers did not erase the hollow anguish that crawled underneath her skin, but it gave her something to cling to.

For everything left that was still ahead of them, it would have to do.


	25. So That I Don't Forget

**Notes:**

 **Chapter Title:** Wasurenai Tame ni (忘れない為に lit. _So That I Don't Forget_ ) - Yanagi Nagi

* * *

 _"I'm not an articulate person. I've never been one and chances are I never will be. Why spend the effort on coming up with carefully phrased sentences when you can just say what you mean?_

 _That's why this is so damn hard. How can I tell Eli that she should stop wasting the time that she still has left when all I really want to say to her is that I_ know _saying goodbye is the hardest thing we can do?" —Nishikino Maki_

* * *

Fujiwara flicked through his datapad as he paced in front of her desk, reading through it one more time before he turned to her. "If we're going to implement the cure before President Tenjoin has a chance to act on his plans, then it needs to be soon."

Nozomi watched him, reading the intense seriousness in his dark gaze and knew that he meant what he said. When she paused, he picked up on her hesitation almost immediately. "You can't seriously be thinking of waiting," he said to her impatiently, as though he was addressing a petulant child. "From the information that the researchers have provided, the lower the temperature is when it's used, the less effective it will be. Do you want to think about it until that becomes the case?"

She took a breath, knowing that trying to explain things to her advisor would only turn out to be an inevitable waste of time. "No, of course not," she replied. "But surely you're aware that planning the logistics of all of this will take time? Even if we were to hold a security debriefing tomorrow, we still haven't heard back from the research lab regarding the most optimal location to release this cure."

Her advisor scowled, jotting down a note quickly on his datapad. "You should've gotten your secretary to follow up on that," he muttered. "It shouldn't take them this long to come up with an answer."

"I'll make sure to remind her," Nozomi told him blithely.

Shaking his head once, Fujiwara turned to make his way to the door, pausing when he was only a few steps away from it. "By the way…"

She arched an eyebow delicately at him. "Yes?"

"You should be careful about who you spend your time with." There was a barely-veiled warning in his voice. "I've heard… ah, some _rumours_ about who you've been seen with."

 _Ah, yes. I wondered when this would come up. After all, I didn't deem it something that was necessary for him to know, especially since I know without a doubt as to what his reaction will be and what he's going to say. Eli doesn't need any of that—least of all now._

A small smile curled at the corners of her mouth as Nozomi watched him turn his head back slightly to gauge her reaction. "I don't see how my personal relationships have anything to do with you, Fujiwara-san," she informed him lightly.

She watched him furrow his eyebrows at her, the expression in his brown gaze darkening. "So… you're not even going to deny it?"

"Is there a reason for me to?" she inquired serenely.

He turned to face her squarely then, datapad clutched angrily in one hand. "Aren't you even the _least_ bit concerned about how this will _look_?" He took a breath, clearly itching to say more before he closed his mouth, evidently having decided that it was more prudent to wait for her answer to his question first.

"No, not particularly," Nozomi replied.

"I've looked into her," he growled at her, not even bothering to hide the fact that he'd done so. "Even if you take away the fact that she's just an ordinary citizen with no significant background, have you considered what she _does_ for a living? Is that kind of person _really_ someone you want to associate yourself with?"

The smile on her lips widened slightly. "And in the future, she'll be working for me. You'll have to forgive me if I fail to see the problem here."

Nozomi watched him inhale slowly, holding in the breath for a few heartbeats before Fujiwara ground out his next words. "You may think it's all fun and games now, but tell me, what will happen when she _accidentally_ says something she's not supposed to, when you inevitably bring her to meet other politicians of your social standing?"

She pretended to think about it. "You know, Fujiwara-san, I'm quite sure that we're both acquainted with a fair number people who certainly know better, but have done just that. If it's _that_ you're concerned about, then I assure you it won't be an issue. Was there something else?" she asked sweetly, knowing her tone would irritate him far more than her question.

He shot her a dissatisfied look as he reached for the doorknob. "Well, then I can only hope you know what you're getting yourself into. Try not to let your _personal relationships_ ruin your reputation too much, will you?"

He slammed the door shut behind him.

Nozomi listened for his fading footsteps before she picked up the phone on her desk. _Now with him dealt with for the moment, I have a meeting of actual importance to be at._

Koizumi picked up on the first ring. "Your car is ready for you, T-Toujou-sama," she reported from the other end of the line.

"Good," Nozomi told her. "I'll be there in five minutes."

Stopping only to take a long coat from one of her attendants, she stepped into the waiting vehicle with two of her usual security guards at the front of the district building less than ten minutes later. The ride to the university campus was completely silent, but that suited her just fine. Silence was just another facet of her life that she'd gotten used to over the years, though that fact was due for a change—sooner, rather than later, but now was not the time to pursue that particular agenda.

She spotted long, untied blonde hair half hidden underneath the hood of a jacket at the campus gates before the car had completely stopped. Eli had her hands in her pockets and was staring at the cement pavement, but she looked up as Nozomi got out of the vehicle.

"Hey," she said in a low voice.

Eli's expression was carefully controlled, but it wasn't hard to discern the pain that still lurked behind her cerulean gaze and in the shadows that underlined her eyes.

As concerned as she was, she knew that now was not the time that Eli would've wanted her to address it, so Nozomi let it be, instead taking her hand as a form of greeting. "Thank you for waiting for me out here," she told her.

The ghost of a smile played at the edges of Eli's mouth for perhaps a fraction of a second before it was gone. "You're welcome," she replied quietly after a moment or two, before turning back towards the gates to the campus entrance. "We should get going."

Nozomi let her lead the way, not completely content with the silence between them but acutely aware of the fact that right now, it was not something she could change. It wasn't long before Eli stopped in front of an inconspicuous door on the basement level of one of the university's many buildings, typing in a password into the keypad beside the door with one practiced hand.

She had never actually been to the underground laboratory that she knew Nishikino Maki owned, but she had picked it as a location for their meeting for several reasons, none of which she was willing to say out loud in front of her advisors. Following Eli through the unlocked door, she was immediately greeted by the sight of the redheaded physician sitting at a table, scribbling something on a worn lab notebook and Sonoda Umi, who was perched on the edge of her chair as though she expected an intruder to burst through the lab doors.

Though if things had been different, she might have been considered one, especially given the less-than-friendly look Nishikino shot in her direction the moment the door closed on her security guards behind them. It was more than obvious that she— _still_ —did not approve of her relationship with Eli and Nozomi was acutely aware of the fact that it would take a lot more than what she had already done for Eli's friends to accept her.

 _Strangely enough… I think I can accept that._ If truth was told, there was a part of her that envied the relationship Eli had with her friends. _They consider each other family. Even in a world like the one we live in, they trust each other unconditionally. It's funny—I was the one who grew up in a life where anything I wanted, I had. But the one thing that life couldn't give me was the support of people who wanted the best for me, not because of the role I was born into, but because of who I was._

The irony of it was staggering, and on any other day, she might've allowed herself to muse upon the topic for a few more minutes, but Nozomi did not have that luxury today. "Good afternoon," she said, her voice light but careful.

Sonoda stood up—out of habit, she presumed—and offered her a seat on an unoccupied chair.

It was probably possible to cut through the tension in the room at the moment with a knife. Nozomi didn't think any of them had forgotten the last time the four of them had been in close proximity with each other, and the situation had only been compounded by things none of them had wanted to happen since then.

Nishikino set down her notebook, capping her pen and sticking it back in her pocket. "I still don't know why we couldn't have had this discussion at the district building," she grumbled, half under her breath.

A smile twitched at the corner of her lips. "If it's your intention to entertain politicians for half the afternoon and potentially attract unwanted attention while we're there, Nishikino-san, it still _is_ an option," Nozomi informed her.

A scowl crossed the redhead's face as she turned on a computer behind her. "Yeah, yeah…" she muttered. She swivelled her head around as though she had just spotted Eli standing behind them. "Eli, either sit down or make yourself useful and go make some coffee." Her voice was curt, but it was easy for Nozomi to discern that the evident frustration in her tone was not directed at her friend, but at her own inability to express her own feelings.

It was a testament to exactly how well Eli was coping when she wordlessly made her way to the other side of the room and Nozomi realized that she did not own the only pair of concerned eyes in the room as Sonoda followed Eli's movements with a troubled amber gaze, biting down on her bottom lip while Nishikino played with the frayed edge of her lab coat sleeve, picking at the threads.

"Maki, was that really necessary?" the blue-haired bounty hunter asked in a quiet voice that was too low to carry across the room.

Nishikino shrugged, letting out a weary sigh that belied her actions. "What do you want me to do, Umi? You know perfectly well that the more we treat her like she's some fragile little princess, the less she'll be willing to actually talk about it. Until then, the less we act like we feel sorry for her, the less she'll resent us when she's actually ready to talk."

She shot a disgruntled glance in Nozomi's direction, the look both accusing and resigned.

Nozomi took her gaze off of the back of Eli's shoulders and met the redhead's scrutinizing glare, realizing that she held tangible weight in this conversation even though she had little right to participate in it at all. After a few moments, Nishikino looked away, dragging the fingers of one hand through her unruly red hair.

"Well, whatever," she said dismissively. "We have plenty of time to talk about that later. We've got more important things to discuss at the moment."

Hesitating, Nozomi laced her fingers together on the tabletop. While it was obvious from the tone in Nishikino's voice that she was not dismissing the problem at hand, but rather putting it aside because she didn't _know_ how to deal with it at the moment, it still felt wrong to leave it wholly unaddressed.

 _But it's clear to me that she doesn't want me involved. No matter how well I may or may not know Eli, I know that she doesn't believe that I know her at all._ Although it was a fair assessment, especially given their circumstances, the rationalization couldn't completely banish her misgivings. "You wanted to speak to me?" she asked, keeping her voice neutral.

Nishikino scowled. "Yeah. That secretary of yours called me yesterday to confirm my results. I figured it would've more appropriate if I told you about them in person instead of leaving it up to other, less trustworthy people." Her grimace deepened at the end of her words—it was clear the thought was associated with a recent, unpleasant memory.

"So what do you have?"

The redhead pulled her laptop towards her, turning the screen so that she could see it. "Like I told one of your people last time, the lower the temperature is, the less effective this stuff will be." She let out a frustrated growl. "We're still working on trying to come up with an alternative, but _that's_ not going as well as I would've hoped. It doesn't help that there are politicians calling my office every single day to ask me something."

Nozomi looked at her hands. _There's nothing I can do about that, and she knows it._ "Go on," she said.

Behind her, she heard Eli return. She watched her as she silently offered Nishikino her cup of coffee. Eli did not look at her—or at anyone else—as she found herself another chair to sit down in. Whether it was intentional or not, Nozomi couldn't tell.

"Anyways, what your secretary wanted to know was if I'd looked into where the best place would be to use this. To maximize efficiency, I guess." She shrugged, before pointing to a spot on the screen. "So I ran some simulations last night. I think it's here."

Nozomi followed the tip of her finger. "Mt. Fuji?" she asked. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," the redhead snapped. "I even looked into the site. Obviously it's the tallest natural landmark in Japan, but there are still bunkers and several environmental control plants up there from eight years ago that should be still functional enough. If not, I'm sure they can be made to be."

Frowning slightly, Nozomi rested her chin on the back of one hand as she thought about the option. "It's an interesting proposition," she said finally. "One I hadn't considered. However, we may not currently have the resources to make it happen."

Nishikino shrugged again. "That's not my problem. I've told you what I think. You and your politicians can take it or leave it."

"Of course, I intend to discuss this with them," Nozomi told her, "though I'll need you to send my secretary a copy of your analysis before I can arrange a meeting."

"Fine," Nishikino said. "But there's one more thing."

When Nozomi raised an eyebrow at her, she took a breath before continuing. "Whenever and wherever you decide to use this, I want to be there. I _need_ to be there."

"I beg your pardon?"

She wasn't the only one staring at the redhead. Sonoda had visibly stiffened in her chair, amber eyes wide and Eli had finally looked up from staring at the tabletop in front of them.

"You heard me," Nishikino insisted. All traces of derision and sarcasm had vanished from her voice, leaving behind only calculated resolve. "I dedicated my career to this because of who my father was. _I_ was the one who came up with this. Sure, there have been mistakes and screw-ups along the way, and I take full responsibility for that. But I'm not about to bow out at the very end and trust someone else to see it through for me. That's already happened once, and I think we all know how _that_ turned out. I need to be there to make sure that this time, nothing goes wrong."

Silence met the end of her speech, and a few minutes passed before anyone spoke. "If you are serious about going, then so am I," Sonoda said slowly.

For the first time since she'd known the erratic young physician, Nozomi saw one side of her mouth twitch into a wry smile. "I thought you'd say that." Nishikino turned her attention back to her. "Well? What do you think?"

Nozomi met her gaze, wanting to be honest with her despite the fact that she had seen Eli tighten her slender fingers into a ball in her lap. "I did plan on opening this particular operation to the public, so, Sonoda-san, if you would like to go, then I have no complaint. I think you've proved that you are more than capable of doing so. However," she pressed on, interrupting Nishikino when she opened her mouth, "civilians are usually not permitted on operations of this nature. _If_ you are serious about joining it, then I will have to speak on your behalf. I can't guarantee anything, but I will see what I can do."

Nishikino held her gaze. "Please," she said simply.

It was perhaps the closest to contrite she had ever heard the redhead sound. Despite the fact that the closest the two of them had come to agreement had been nothing more than disgruntled acknowledgement of the other's needs, Nozomi felt her respect for the hot-headed young woman rise ever so slightly. _She's willing to bury her pride and what happened in the past to make her goals a reality. I can respect that._

The sound of a chair scraping against the cement floor grabbed her attention; Eli had stood up, her hands tight and trembling ever so slightly at her sides. "I'm going for a walk," she announced, turning and leaving the room before anyone could protest.

Sonoda and Nishikino stared after the door that had closed behind her for a few heartbeats before the blue-haired bounty hunter sighed. "I… _we_ should have known that she wasn't ready for this conversation."

Nishikino said nothing, but shook her head. "It would've been worse if we had it without her."

Nozomi got up, fully intent on following Eli out the door when the redhead spoke up again. "Don't bother," she said. "You won't get anything out of her."

After a moment of hesitation, Nozomi opened her mouth.

"Be as that may," she told her calmly, "it's not right that she should have to deal with all of this on her own. She has yet to come to terms with the fact that in a few short weeks, she's going to lose what she's spent the last four years searching for, and she's just learned that no matter what she says or does, she can't stop the two of you from going on something that could very well get you killed. Tell me, is that something that's healthy for her to have to accept by herself?"

It was completely silent for a minute or two as she let the words sink in. When no one said anything, Nozomi took a few steps towards the door.

A tentative hand touched her shoulder and she turned around, finding the hesitant amber gaze of Sonoda Umi looking back at her. "If you're going to go after her, she usually goes to the park beside the waterfront when she wants to be alone," the blue-haired woman told her.

Her eyes widened slightly at the unexpected information, and Nozomi nodded once in acknowledgment.

Sonoda looked away for a brief heartbeat before she looked up again. "I… misjudged you," she admitted finally. "When I found out about you and Eli, I didn't know if she was making a mistake. I warned her not to, because I was afraid that she _would_ be making a mistake. But… you actually understand her—just as well as either of us do, in fact. I can see why it's easier for her to talk to you instead of us: you are far better equipped to navigate her emotions than either of us are—or ever will be."

Behind her, Nishikino stood too, her amethyst gaze challenging and expectant. "You gave me your confidence earlier when you had no reason to," the redhead stated, looking slightly abashed. "So now, I _guess_ I owe it to you to trust that you can talk her through this." She paused, her embarrassment changing into distaste. "You better not make me regret saying this out loud," she warned.

Nozomi put her hand on the doorknob and turned it, smiling slightly. "You have my word."

* * *

Nozomi found Eli exactly where Sonoda Umi had said that she would find her, sitting on a bench in the park near Tokyo's waterfront. She slowed down her footsteps as she drew closer and she gently laid a hand on the blonde's shoulder. Eli had apparently heard her coming—she didn't even start at the contact.

"I should've known you would follow me," she muttered in a low voice.

"Am I that predictable?" Nozomi asked her, making her way around the bench and sitting down on the opposite side.

"No," Eli told her quietly, "it's just something I know you would do."

"Well, right now I'm doing it because I'm worried about you. Your friends are, too."

Eli looked away from her, her head turned toward the churning grey waves of Tokyo Bay. "So they sent you after me?"

"No," Nozomi said gently. "I made that decision on my own."

When Eli did not reply, she went on, making sure she had complete control of her voice before she spoke again. "I can't tell you how to feel," she began. "It wouldn't be fair for me to tell you it's not okay to feel a certain way, because in the end, you are the one who's going to be losing someone you love. But what I _am_ here to remind you of is that you shouldn't have to deal with this by yourself."

Eli looked at her then, holding her gaze for a fraction of a heartbeat before averting her eyes. Nozomi got up to take a step closer to her, but didn't move to touch her. "You let me care about you, and you've let me stand with you, but you've never let me share any of the burden," she said softly.

It was quiet for a few moments, the only source of sound coming from the wind driving the waves against the rocks a few hundred feet away from them. "You've got your own problems," Eli said at last. "Adding mine to them is selfish."

Despite the fact that there was nothing around them to feel happy for, Nozomi smiled. "That's the part about this you've never really understood. Sharing the load is why people form relationships with one another. It doesn't add to my problems or pain to help you with yours. In fact, it's the opposite."

When Eli did not immediately refute her statement, she continued. "You know, I could tell from your friends' reactions that you don't cry in front of them. They don't know how to help you, because you don't tell them what they can do for you."

"Uh huh." Eli acknowledged her words with the simple dismissal.

"Can you tell _me_ how I can help you?" she prompted her gently.

Eli was silent for a long time—so long, in fact, that it crossed Nozomi's mind that she might have made an assumption she shouldn't have. When the blonde suddenly stood up, she looked at her in surprise, half-expecting her to leave again.

Instead, Eli faced her, shoulders hunched against the wind. "Walk with me?" she asked quietly.

It was a request, not a demand. Nozomi nodded and followed.

For the first several hundred metres, no one spoke. Nozomi opened her mouth a few times, but stopped herself. Beside her walked a stoic, recalcitrant young woman, doing her best to find her way through something difficult that she had absolutely no power to change, no matter how much she might've wanted to. She could wait.

"I'm sorry," Eli told her after almost ten minutes of silence. "I didn't mean to worry you—or anyone else—because of this. It's just… I don't know what to do. I don't know—it feels like everyone else has accepted what's going to happen, except for me. Somehow, it feels wrong for me to even be upset over it." She choked out a dry laugh. "I mean, it's basically the solution to everyone's problems that we were all looking for. You won't have to deal with Tenjoin or the rest of your senate anymore, and Maki will have accomplished the one thing that she's dedicated her entire life to. Even my sister's agreed that it's probably for the best." She crossed her arms over her chest, the fingers of her hands digging into the opposite elbow. "Why is it that I'm the only one who can't accept any of this?"

"No one has the right to tell you how to feel," Nozomi murmured. "Or the right to tell you that how you're feeling is selfish. Even if it may seem like the right solution to everyone else, you have the right not to feel that way. Is that what's concerning you?"

Eli shook her head. "I don't know what to do," she repeated in a low voice. "I want someone to tell me how I'm supposed to move past this. I want someone to tell me how I can accept all of this."

Nozomi stopped walking. Reaching out to gently hold onto Eli's wrist, she stopped her from pushing past her. "Is that what _you_ want?" she asked softly. "Or do you just want to be able to accept it because you think it would be more beneficial for everyone else if you did? Be honest with me."

The look in Eli's blue eyes was troubled, a combination of fear and pain. "I don't know," she said again, throat working as she swallowed. "Both… I suppose. When I really thought through what happened, I didn't know how I was supposed to feel. No matter what I wanted, could I really tell Alisa how _she_ was supposed to feel? If she _wants_ what's going to happen, do I really have the right to tell her I don't want it to? At what point would it become more for me than for her?"

Letting the fingers around Eli's wrist slide down until she was holding her hand, Nozomi took a breath to steady her own breathing.

 _I wish I had the power to change this for you. Truly, I wish I did._

"How you're feeling isn't wrong, you know," she told her gently. "In fact, even like this, you're putting other people's needs above your own. But right now, I want you to think about _you._ What would need to happen to make this easier for you? I don't mean to just accept," she clarified. "I mean in a way so that you're not afraid of what the future will be."

Eli looked to the side, the sigh that escaped her lips so heavy and distant that she almost winced. "I don't know. Some sort of closure, I guess." She paused, her other hand stiff at her side though she did not fight Nozomi's grip on her fingers; it was a minute or two before she elaborated. "If there was some way for me to know for sure that Alisa is alright with what's going to happen, then… I think I would be okay with that."

Nozomi closed her eyes for a brief heartbeat, confining her own feelings about what Eli had just said to a corner of her chest for the time being. "Okay. How can we make that happen?" she asked.

The pressure on her fingers suddenly increased as Eli looked up at her. "Alisa told me she wanted to see me one more time. I… wasn't sure if I could do it. I didn't know if I _wanted_ to do it. But now, I think… I need to."

Taking the opportunity of their joined hands to pull Eli closer to her, her concerns were assuaged by a small margin when she did not resist. "I think you're right," Nozomi told her softly, slipping her free arm underneath Eli's once she was close enough for her to do so. "But this time, I'm coming with you."

For the first time in weeks, she felt Eli relax, dropping her forehead against her shoulder. "Okay."

* * *

Light snowflakes drifted from the grey skies as Eli made her way up the small hillside, Nozomi a few steps behind her. They weren't far from the car that had brought them there, but somehow, the location felt more isolated and lonely than any place Alisa had picked previously.

Brushing stray flakes out from her hair, the two of them stood side by side, waiting. Neither of them said a word. Eli didn't think she had the felicity to, regardless. The fact that Nozomi did not push her to speak eased the ache in her chest that refused to leave no matter what anyone said to her by a little, but not by much. Whether or not it would ever completely go away was something that still remained to be seen.

The sound of soft footsteps on stone drew her attention to the piles of rubble around them. A figure in a dark cloak stepped out from behind a large boulder a few moments later.

Alisa dusted the snow from her head as she approached them. She wasn't directly looking at her, but Eli could tell that there was a small smile lurking at the corners of her features. "I didn't realize you were here already," she said lightly when she finally stopped in front of them.

Eli shook her head. "It's okay. We weren't… waiting long."

Alisa raised an eyebrow slightly at the hoarse quality of her voice, but she didn't comment as she turned to the violet-haired woman beside her. "It's nice to finally meet you in person," she greeted her, dipping her head.

"I've heard a lot about you," Nozomi replied delicately, acknowledging the gesture of respect with a faint smile of her own.

Her sister laughed, the sound soft and musical. "I'm sure you have."

She turned her attention back to Eli, her blue gaze scrutinizing as she looked her over once. "Are you still thinking about what you can do to change all of this?" she asked.

Her sister's ability to see to the heart of her problems had not diminished in any capacity in the four years that they had spent apart and her lack of an immediate reply was all the response Alisa needed.

Alisa strode towards her until they were practically face-to-face; Eli could count the faint freckles smattered across her nose. When she spoke, her voice was gentle, but firm. "Listen to me. You can't change what will happen. No matter how much you want to and how hard you try." She gestured to Nozomi behind them with one arm. "If she can't change the future, what makes you think you can?"

Her sister cut off her protest before the words could even make it out of her mouth. "It's for the better," she said. "Believe me."

Eli closed her eyes for a few seconds against the wall of denial in her chest, and she found herself echoing Nozomi's words to her from a few days previously. "Are you saying that because it's what you really think… or are you saying it because you're trying to make me feel better?"

Her sister smiled again; this time, the expression reached her eyes. When she stared into it, Eli realized that it was genuine.

She didn't know whether or not that knowledge was supposed to hurt as much as it did.

"Neither," Alisa replied simply. "I won't lie to you and tell you that it wasn't a hard pill to swallow. But I think that even if this doesn't happen now, it would've happened eventually. I... I've seen what happens when someone becomes a Ceresis in the outer district. Do you believe me when I say that I don't want that? Not for me, and not for anyone I know."

When she slowly nodded once, unable to find a way to express the needle-thin chill that had slipped through her at the question, Alisa continued, her words growing softer. "That's why I think this is a good thing. It might not be exactly what I wanted, but it's better than anything I could've hoped for." She reached out to touch her arm, holding onto her sleeve with a grip that was much firmer than she would've anticipated. "I've accepted it. So should you."

Shaking her head, finally putting the source of the pain in her chest to words, Eli tried to wrest her arm out of her grip. "It just… seems so unfair that it should have to end like this."

Alisa shook her head, a sad smile tugging at the corner of her lips. She took a breath before she spoke. "You'll be okay," her sister reassured her. "I'm sure that even if you don't think so right now, there are people around you that will make sure you will be. Just… promise me one thing."

"What is it?" she asked in a tremulous voice.

Alisa took a step backwards, raising her head to meet her gaze. "Don't forget about us. Me, the people from the outer districts you've met, and everyone from the outer districts that you'll never get the chance to. You have to make sure that this city doesn't make the same mistakes they did eight years ago. Don't… let this happen again." Her sister's periwrinkle gaze burned, the intensity in them igniting the hollowness in her chest.

"Promise me," she repeated. The grip on her arm tightened until it was almost painful.

Her erratic heartbeat at her throat, Eli struggled to swallow. She couldn't believe her own voice, shaking with emotion, or the tears that stung the back of her eyelids. Regret, conviction and the pain of what might have been were suddenly crashing in on her, but that did not change the truth that she knew was hers to say.

"I promise," she said, the words like fire against the ice underneath her skin.

Her sister let go of her then, using her hands to pull the hood of her cloak back over her head as she turned to go.

"I believe in you," she said as she looked back, the statement earnest without a trace of sorrow in it. She gave the two of them a long, meaningful look that held more than Eli knew she would ever have time to say aloud. "Both of you."

With that, Alisa turned to leave the way she had come. Within a few seconds, she was gone, her dark silhouette swallowed by the falling snow.

A few minutes passed in silence before warm fingers found one of her hands.

"Are you okay?" Nozomi asked her gently.

Eli swiped the back of her free hand against the wetness on her cheeks. "No," she said. "But… I will be."


	26. Heaven is a Place on Earth - Part 1

**Notes:** You may notice by the title of this chapter that I've split it in half. This was originally planned to be the penultimate chapter of this fic, but then it got way too long and out of hand, so I had to split it for several reasons (my sanity is one of them).

 **Chapter Title:** Heaven is a Place on Earth - fripside

* * *

 _"This is it. Everything that we have worked for—everything that we have lived for—for the last eight years comes down to this—a single day._

 _Would I say that I was afraid? Probably not, but every time I think about what could happen in the next twenty-four hours, I'm reminded that no matter what happens, we still have a future. Life still goes on._

 _For the sake of everything that has brought us here, I want to be able to create a future that we will not regret." —Sonoda Umi_

* * *

Rin placed the gun on the counter in front of them. "This is the gun nya wanted, Umi-chan. I loaded it for you, but I put some spare clips with the arrows you wanted."

"Thank you," Umi said, picking it up. It was heavier than she expected, but she couldn't imagine that that fact would make much of a difference to Maki.

The orange-haired young woman watched her curiously. "Who's it for, Umi-chan? I don't remember nya wanting to use a gun before."

"No," Umi admitted truthfully. "This is for Maki."

Rin's hazel eyes widened as she put down the cat she was holding. She didn't even notice as it balanced precariously on one of her legs with unsheathed claws before it leapt lightly to the floor, disappearing into a corner of the store. "Are you _serious_? She's going with you?"

Nodding, Umi tightened the strap on her bag before replacing it on her shoulders. "Yes. She wanted to." The words _'actually, I insisted on accompanying_ her _because this is something that she said she had to do'_ didn't quite make it out past her lips. Even though the store was empty apart from her, she did not feel comfortable disclosing that information out loud.

Somehow, she felt like the gravity of that moment would be lost on Rin.

But the other woman straightened up, brushing the cat fur off of her pants as she met Umi's gaze with an unexpectedly serious one of her own. "Then the two of you had better stay safe out there."

"You know I always do," Umi replied steadily, after a moment's pause.

Rin grinned at her then. "Good. All the private military companies have pulled out of the outer districts early because there's no point in hunting something that won't exist anymore in a few days. You better show them up, because I want to hear all about it when nya get back."

Underneath the banter, the younger woman's sincerity gleamed.

Umi waved to her over her shoulder with one hand as she held aside the burlap flap that served as a front door to leave. "I'm sure you will."

* * *

The sound of their footsteps on the undergrowth was the only thing Umi could hear.

She did not want to admit it, but the silence of the pine forest around them unnerved her slightly as Umi peered around a tree, spotting nothing but dark green, occasionally flecked with snow, against grey ahead of them. Fingers of one hand tight against the curve of her bow, she beckoned to Maki behind her.

"Are you _sure_ you are okay with doing this?" she asked dubiously, watching Maki stumble on a large tree root, muttering a few curse words under her breath as she regained her balance. Deep down, Umi knew the answer, but the cautious part of her still wanted to double-check.

The redhead scowled at her. "I'm a _physician_ , not _useless_."

Umi could not help but notice the way she was holding her pistol in her hands—she could point out a few ways that Maki could improve her grip on her gun, but after a few moments of deliberation, she decided to keep them to herself. As uncharacteristic as it was, she could sense the anxious energy that radiated off of her friend and it was likely that commenting would only make it worse.

Maki pushed ahead of her indignantly, boots crunching dead leaves heavy with frost into the hard earth beneath them as the ground sloped up slightly. "You better be sure that the bullets in this gun actually work," she grumbled as she passed.

Speeding up slightly so that they walked shoulder to shoulder, Umi looked at her pointedly out of the corner of her eye, meeting her friend's challenging amethyst gaze with her soft brown one. "I checked it myself," she informed her seriously. "Besides, Rin wouldn't sell me something that was defective."

"You better hope so, then," Maki told her dryly. "Remember, if we die out here because these don't work properly, there's going to be someone back in Tokyo that's going to bring us back from the dead just so she'll be able kill us herself."

She didn't stop, but the words made Umi pause for the smallest fraction of a heartbeat as she almost faltered herself, even though there was nothing on the rough earth path to trip over.

Steadying herself, she checked the tension on her bow. "I'm aware."

* * *

 _Eli wrung her hands together; her hands itched to stop her friends, even though she knew the effort would be fruitless. One of them broke free anyways as she involuntary took a step forward, her right hand extended in motion to stop them. "This isn't right," she insisted. "I should be going with you."_

 _Maki snorted. "How much help do you think you're going to be out there? You can't fight, and we don't need you to implement the cure. You'll actually be use_ ful _if you can get into whatever security system's left in the environmental plant up there, so it's just better if you stay here."_

 _The tone was impatient and derisive, as though the redhead was speaking to a child who didn't understand the implications of what lay in front of them._

 _She ignored the hand Nozomi put on her shoulder. "Still," she repeated. "It doesn't feel right."_

 _Part of her wanted to express the true fears that had settled into the bottom of her stomach, but it was a vulnerability she knew was better kept to herself._

I… I'm already losing part of my family because of this. I can't lose the rest of it.

 _Umi took a step forward, covering her hand with one of her own, holding her fingers in a steady, firm grip. "We_ will _come back," she said. "I promise."_

 _Maki put her hand on top of theirs, her nails digging into the side of her wrist until it hurt. "Count on it."_

* * *

The tiny speaker in her ear crackled to life. "I can hear you, you know," Eli said into her ear.

Despite the impassive tone of her voice, Umi knew that somewhere, perhaps deep down, Eli was still struggling: it was a burden that she knew all too well could never be put down, no matter how much its weight diminished over time. It concerned her, but she also knew that Toujou would have never let her in the command headquarters if she didn't believe that Eli could handle it.

Surprisingly, she found that that particular judgement was one she trusted.

"That's the point," Maki snapped, peering around a large boulder that lay in the middle of the trail that led up the side of the mountain, her gun raised. "You were the one getting all sentimental before we left, so I decided to remind you that I have no intention of dying out here."

Umi heard a scuffle of static on the other end—it sounded like Eli was putting her hand over the microphone to speak to someone beside her. Shaking her head once, she adjusted her grip on her bow before continuing to move forward.

The undergrowth here was sparser now that they were at a higher elevation and it was much less quiet than it had been on the forest floor—the closest hovercraft could get them to the entrance of the environmental plant that had been built right into the mountainside on top of an old Namidite mine in a desperate attempt to create weather conditions that Ceresis could not survive in—but the absence of sound below had not been the only thing that disturbed her.

The loud, sudden screech of a crow caused her to wince, especially when the sound carried against the bare rock that surrounded them. Watching as it swooped away from where their footsteps had disturbed its perch, Umi waited for something— _anything_ —to emerge from the line of trees just ahead of them, but there was nothing.

 _It's… strange. How quiet it is up here._ She had expected to run into a fair number of Ceresis on the way to the environmental plant, but apart from a few that had been easy pickings for the two of them since first stepping off the main path an hour or two back, the forest around them had been deserted.

Umi was sure the illusionary tranquility was not for the lack of Ceresis in the area. Gunfire had echoed through the dense, unmoving trees more than once, and she had spotted a large plume of smoke in the distance when the two of them had cleared a small cliffside. A few times, they had passed old sentry buildings and small, residential cottages long abandoned; all of them had borne the telltale marks of Ceresis claws, cementing her belief that they were not alone out here.

"Eli," she said into her earpiece. "How much further until we reach the entrance into the plant?"

She heard rapid typing of keys on the other end.

"At the rate you're going, about half an hour if you don't run into anything on the way," came the answer after a few moments.

She frowned at the prospect. " _Are_ we going to run into anything? I mean, can you see anything?"

"The plant's security systems are offline. I won't be able to see anything until you reactivate the power once you're inside. Sorry," Eli told her.

"Great," Maki muttered beside her, kicking aside a rock on the uneven pathway. "All the more reason to hurry up."

As they continued to climb the gently sloping trail, the faint sound of voices up ahead caught her attention. Quickly holding out an arm to stop Maki from turning the corner beside, Umi silenced the redhead with a look when she pulled up angrily, ready to object to the sudden motion.

" _What_?" Maki mouthed angrily at her.

Drawing her bow, Umi paused, jerking her head in the direction they were headed in. After a few seconds of silence, the stiff breeze died down long enough for distinct voices to echo across the eroding rock and stone again to reach them. Maki closed her mouth then, pressing her lips together in a grim line.

Creeping forward slowly, she lifted her bow into position, tightening her hold on the string as she peered around the corner.

Up ahead, the path dipped steeply downward into a crevice where a large stream flowed through the cracks in the stone, creating a small glade surrounded by several taller rock formations. Next to the water were two bounty hunters. It was clear from the way that their weapons and supplies lay scattered around them that they had let their guard down when they had been resting, because a group of Ceresis were rapidly advancing on them.

Without stopping to think about it, Umi released the string on her bow. The shot struck one of the Ceresis squarely in the middle of its chest, bringing it down almost instantly. It was a clean shot, but that fact meant little in the face of the half-a-dozen more that were still lumbering towards the pair of bounty hunters.

She grit her teeth together in frustration as one of the two men slipped on the wet rocks by the bank of the stream in his desperation to get away, making him an easy victim for one of the Ceresis that easily closed the distance between them.

The second man fared no better without his weapon as the Ceresis closed in on him, as Umi took aim at another.

The sharp sound of a gunshot rang out behind her as the bullet caught one of the remaining Ceresis in the shoulder. It let out a dying screech, the metal in the projectile already eating through its skin as it stumbled into the water.

Planting her feet firmly on the uneven ground beneath her, Umi knew they had to eliminate the Ceresis quickly before the sound attracted any more that were in the area.

Ducking behind one of the rock formations, she picked an angle to shoot from. The uneven ground and the uphill incline in their direction meant that it would not be as easy for the Ceresis to close in on their position as it had been for them to catch up to the two unprepared bounty hunters, and she used that fact to her advantage as she took down the remaining Ceresis with two quick shots in succession.

Silence settled over the small clearing as the last Ceresis dropped motionless to the wet earth, though Umi knew it would not stay that way for long.

As the two of them cautiously made their way down the steep trail, she heard Maki make a sound of disgust as they passed the bodies of the two bounty hunters, pausing only to inspect the supplies that they had left by the stream. "Idiots," Umi heard her mutter, bitterness corroding the end of the word.

She said nothing; she had seen what had happened before her many times before in the past eight years—far too many to count. _But by the end of today, I hope that I will never have to see it again._ The fervent prayer was belied by her actions, as she rifled through the men's packs. Her fingers closed around several clips of spare ammunition.

Umi felt the familiar pang of unease as she handed them to Maki, before she pushed the uncomfortable feeling out of her mind. Somehow, it felt wrong to take them, though she knew that others in her place would have no qualms about doing so.

After all, the dead did not need them, but there was a possibility that they would.

The redhead gave her head a small shake as she pushed her unruly dark hair out of her eyes. "Come on, let's get going."

Umi led the way as they left the stream behind, finally clearing the treetops of the forest below them as the trail continued to spiral upwards. It was not long before she spotted rusted metal railings lining the narrow path. Fifty feet past the end of the last set of railings, she picked out the metal set of doors carved into the mountainside.

Drawing closer to it, Umi let Maki try the set of door handles while she kept watch over their surroundings, bow drawn.

"No luck," she reported a few moments later, holding her hand up to her earpiece. "Eli, can you get us in?"

"Is there some sort of door control you can see?" came the question from the other end.

Umi looked around, keeping a wary eye on the path behind them as she did so in case someone—or something—unwanted was following them.

"Yeah, I see it," Maki reported a minute later. "Want me to try to activate it?"

When Eli responded to the affirmative, the redheard strode up to it, shrugging off her rucksack as she did so. Slapping the monitor to life, Umi watched her type a few things on the keypad below it. "Access denied," Maki read off the display. "This looks pretty complicated. You sure you can get through this door?"

Eli did not reply immediately, although Umi heard a crackle of indistinct static coming from the other end—it sounded like muffled, soft laughter.

"Try now," the blonde said dryly a few minutes later.

Umi allowed herself a small smile behind a hand when the display winked green and Maki scowled. Pushing her shoulder into the doorframe, the decade-old door opened with a creak of rusted hinges.

Coughing into her elbow at the pungent smell of Namidite in the darkened hallway beyond the door, she closed the door behind them, cutting off the bright daylight that cut through the gloom like a blade.

Emergency lighting flickered to life along the sides of the catwalk they were standing on—enough to see by, but not nearly enough for her liking. If an enemy happened to approach them, they would have perhaps a few seconds of warning at best.

With the sound of gunfire that was occasionally punctuated by the screech of a Ceresis coming from somewhere below them in the darkness, Umi did not like that prospect at all.

"Find me a security console," she heard Eli instruct in her ear. "Then plug in that OSD I gave you."

"I don't see one," Umi informed her, glancing around in the semi-darkness. "There might not be one where we are, so we'll keep going. I'll let you know when we find one."

Maki gave her a curt nod as Umi passed her, taking the lead. The metal grating of the catwalk rattled very slightly underneath her boots as they progressed, finally reaching a set of stairs at the end of the walkway.

Peering down into the darkness, she winced when she heard another screech split the silence, followed by the sound of rapid gunshots. _I know what we'll find if we go down._ Exchanging a significant look with Maki in the half-light, she began to climb, the cramped, narrow steps threatening to trip her if she was not careful about where she was putting her feet.

At the top of the flight of stairs, she found the security console that Eli had told her to look for. She motioned wordlessly for Maki to pull out the small storage device that had been given to them and waited for the screen of the console to blink on when she inserted it into a port.

"Okay," Eli said five minutes later. "I have access now. Some of the security cameras aren't working anymore, so I'll try to work around that. Give me a moment to find you the most direct route to the control room."

Umi waited, watching out of the corner of her eye as Maki checked the contents of her bag again. The large cylinder that held the results of her research was still intact—somehow, Honoka had come up with a way to compress the liquid into a plastic cylinder that was no bigger than her forearm. If it was dispersed at the environmental plant as planned, its release would cover almost all of the remaining districts in Japan.

It was not a universal solution, nor was it the ideal solution that she would have liked to see after eight years of trial, but it was the solution they would have to work with. Everything else that would come afterwards—the consequences of their actions—would be their responsibility to shoulder, whether it was good or bad.

"I'm done." Eli's voice snapped her out of her thoughts as her phone buzzed in her pocket. "I've sent you the site map to your phone. You'll have to keep going up until you reach another outer door to go back outside. The control room is located on the other side of the facility and that's the fastest way that I can see that'll get you there without running into any major trouble."

Umi pulled out her phone to give the layout of the environmental plant a brief look before she replaced it, reloading her bow again in case there was something hostile waiting for them at the top of the stairs.

"What's down below us?" Maki asked as they resumed their climb. "Doesn't sound like it's something you want us to get involved in."

"The access site at the bottom of the mountain was blown out when the last group of scientists tried to escape a few years ago," Eli told her. "Over time it's allowed the Ceresis to enter the facility, and that's what the bounty hunters and mercs down there are fighting. There _is_ a lift down there that's still powered that could get you closer to where you want to go faster, but I don't think it's worth the risk at this point."

"No," Umi agreed as she made out the silhouette of another catwalk above her head. According to the map Eli had sent them, the exit that they were looking for was at the end of it.

Stepping off the stairway, she froze when she caught sight of what lay in front of them. She heard Maki inhale sharply just behind her.

Several bodies—dressed in military garb—were lying scattered across the catwalk in front of them, limp bodies splattered with crimson liquid that decorated the metal grating of the floor. It was recent—the blood had not yet completely dried—and Umi squinted down the walkway to see if she could spot the Ceresis that had undoubtedly ambushed this particular squad, but found nothing,

Maki squatted down next to a dead soldier. "They're all mercs," she reported as she used the tip of her gun to carefully shift one of the lifeless limbs to get a closer look. "It doesn't look like they put up much of a fight."

The low guttural sound of a Ceresis—somewhere below and ahead of them—reminded her that it would be unwise of them to linger as well. "Eli," Umi hissed into her earpiece. "Do you see anything in front of us?"

"No," came the reply a few moments later. "I'm looking over the security feed right now. The mercs in front of you came across that way from the lower floors about an hour back. I'm trying to track the Ceresis that they ran into, but not all of the security cameras in the area up ahead are working. I don't see anything from here, but that doesn't mean it's not in the area."

Umi acknowledged her words with a grunt as she carefully stepped over the dead bodies. Maki's quick breathing behind her, coupled with the semi-darkness of their surroundings grated on her nerves as she kept glancing around them, wary of any enemy that could be waiting to strike.

When the two of them reached the door at the end of the catwalk, they found it deactivated; it would be a waste of time to try to force their way through.

"Any ideas, Eli?" Maki asked as she looked around, furrowing her brows when the sound of gunfire echoed against the walls, coming from somewhere beneath them.

Umi listened to the rapid click of typing for a minute or two before Eli responded. "There's a master circuit breaker in the area that should reactivate the door. Do you see any pipes around you?"

"Pipes?" she echoed, looking around, spotting a dim red LED glow over the side of the railings that guided the catwalk. "Yes. Why?"

"They power the door," Eli told her. "Follow them."

Exchanging another look with Maki, Umi did as she was told, heading over to a ladder that allowed them to climb up onto the shoulder-height pipe system. The metal tubes easily held their combined weight, but every time her boot squeaked against the metal, she winced, expecting an enemy to emerge from the shadows at the unnatural sound.

The piping system led them back over the arrangement of walkways, away from the exit. The further they walked, the more the sounds of the Ceresis seemed to recede, but Umi did not let her guard down. She knew from bitter experience that a single Ceresis could wipe out an entire squad of unprepared soldiers, and to let her guard down now would be nothing short of suicide.

 _I made more than one promise to return, and I intend to keep them both. No matter what._

She shut the door on thoughts of her parting with Kotori; the memory would only serve as a distraction and that was the last thing she needed right now.

Climbing over the railing at the end of the pipes, she offered a hand to Maki when her feet were back on the walkway. The redhead shot her a look, but did not protest as she took it, clambering over the metal and hopping down lightly to regain her balance.

"Go up the stairs and down the catwalk to your left," Eli instructed. "There should be a ladder at the end of it that leads you down to the console with the circuit breaker."

"Anything we should know about in the way?"

"I can't see anything right now," Eli replied tersely. "The cameras in this area are powered down too. I'm going off the site map right now, but I should be able to see more once you've reset the circuit breaker."

Umi inhaled, holding in the breath as she crept down the walkway, straining to hear over the sound of their footsteps. But nothing came out of the darkness at them, and they descended the ladder with relative ease, although she noted that the very bottom of the ladder had been broken off, which meant that they could not go back up that way.

 _I hope Eli has a plan for that._

The winking red indicator of the circuit breaker was prominent in the shadows as she landed on the floor. Signalling to Maki that she should go press it, Umi lifted her bow up to shoulder height as she followed the redhead, muscles tense in case there was an enemy waiting to strike from the shadows.

Maki pressed her palm against the control for the circuit breaker, backing off slightly and redrawing her gun after she did so.

A soft hum began to reverberate through the metal floor and railings as power was restored, the strip lights overhead giving off a soft bronze glow, occasionally accented by some broken power cables sparking as the flow of electricity made them jump back and forth.

Umi had just turned around to go back the way they had come when the door to their right burst open in a shatter of glass and metal. Maki let out a shout of surprise at the sound as she whipped around to find a Ceresis postured aggressively before them. The eerie screech that it gave off caused cold sweat to break out on her skin—never had she been this close to a living Ceresis without being in complete control of the situation as she quickly drew back her bow just as it was about to leap forward.

She released the arrow at the same time Maki fired.

When the Ceresis fell to the ground, she realized that her heart was pounding.

 _If neither of us had been prepared for the possibility of a fight…_ Umi shoved the thought out of her mind as she met the redhead's eye. "Let's get back to the exit," she suggested, making an effort to keep her voice steady.

She glanced around—the ladder that they had come down on was too high up for them to go back on, but now that power had been restored, Umi could see a door with an orange indicator over its control, indicating that it could be opened with the right access.

"Eli, there better not be any more surprises waiting for us on the way there," Maki hissed into her earpiece, clearly also shaken from their encounter.

"I'm looking," came the reply. "Go activate the door control on the door ahead of you for now so I can open it for you."

As Umi palmed the door control, she waited as it processed her request. "Anything?" she prompted after a few seconds of silence.

"I'm working on it. Give me just a moment here."

Three seconds later, the door indicator turned green as it slid open. Umi heard the tapping of keys as she stepped through the threshold, taking in their surroundings now that they were no longer standing in the darkness.

"Okay," Eli said a few moments later. "There is another Ceresis near the stairs back where you guys came from. I don't see anything in your area right now, but stay alert."

"Alright," Umi acknowledged as she pulled out her phone to check their location again before reloading her bow. She winced at the sight of more bodies that neither of them had noticed in the dark lying on the catwalks as they retraced their steps to the exit, their boots echoing on the metal mesh of the floor underneath them.

"Umi! Maki! Listen to me." Eli's voice broke through the silence, unnaturally loud over the steady rhythm of her heartbeat in her throat. "There are three more Ceresis coming towards you. You need to get ready— _now_."

Umi heard Maki insert a new clip into her gun just behind her as she raised her bow to shoulder height.

"The closest one is behind that pillar beside the wall up there—get rid of it now before the other two are close enough to react to it!"

No sooner than Eli had spoken did the Ceresis in question lumber out of cover from behind the pillarthat formed the foundation of the catwalk. Rolling to one side, Umi concealed herself behind a k-rail while Maki ducked behind a rusted cargo box.

The redhead's first shot missed, the sound of the bullet hitting the metal wall beyond it echoing painfully in the silence as Umi drew her bow from where she was crouched.

The Ceresis dove forward the moment she let the arrow fly. Hissing a curse under her breath, she reloaded just as the Ceresis moved within striking distance of her before the arrow pierced its chest. Pushing herself into a standing position quickly, Umi glanced around their surroundings, trying to pick out any semblance of movement in the shadows where the dim lighting did not quite reach. "Eli, where's the next one?" she demanded as she raised her bow to shoulder height.

"On your left!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the telltale movement of the twisted limbs. Umi did not give it a chance to close the distance between them as she released the string of her bow. Breathing quickly, she motioned for Maki to follow her as she set her sights on the door less than fifty feet away from them. "The last?" she asked.

"On the stairs that you came up from earlier," Eli reported. "Take it out and get out of there so I can lock the door behind you."

Umi grit her teeth together at the suggestion. She knew it was the prudent thing to do—it ensured that they would not be followed once they left this side of the facility behind, but a small part of her was aware of the implications: they would be locking in the rest of the Ceresis with the remaining bounty hunters who would not be able to use that particular exist as a means of escape.

However, there was no time to argue as the Ceresis stumbled up the narrow steps. This time, Maki was ready for it as emerged from the stairwell, firing two shots into its torso before it could clear the top of the steps.

Umi hit the door control as the redhead caught up to her. Noting the quick, uneven rise and fall of her chest and the tense way Maki was holding onto the gun, she looked back in concern. "Are you okay?" she asked in a quiet voice. Caught in the moment and the ensuing fight, she had almost forgotten that her friend was not used to the lifestyle that she lived every day, and worry rose at the back of her throat.

"Fine," Maki ground out, tightening her grip on her weapon. Her amethyst eyes dared Umi to contradict her as the door opened.

A blast of frigid air hit her in the face the moment she turned to face the door, reminding her of the coming winter that would threaten to envelope the mountainside in a few short days if they did not succeed.

Stepping outside into the sudden brightness of the grey skies above, she allowed the door behind them to close once both of them had stepped over the threshold and she watched the indicator blink to red before turning her attention back to the redhead.

For a brief heartbeat, she opened her mouth to say something, but Umi decided against it. There was nothing that she could say that would not somehow invalidate the extent of her friend's conviction and the determination that had brought her to where she stood now.

"Okay," she said at last. "The entrance to the plant control shouldn't be far from here."

She resisted the temptation to grip Maki's arm as she passed the redhead, leading the way to the second entrance set in the mountainside only a few hundred meters away from them.

Once Eli had opened the door for them, they stepped back into the relative shadow. This time, Umi noted that there was no distinct metallic tang in the air, and the lighting on the floor of the corridor was different.

"The elevator up to the plant control is down your right," Eli informed them. "It should still be functional."

Taking care to keep the sound of their footsteps to a minimum, Umi took in their surroundings as they slowly advanced down the hallway. Soft orange lights on either side of them pulsed gently, indicating doorways that led to different parts of the control facility, but she ignored them—none of them would lead them to where they wanted to go. Her sense of caution warned her that it would be more prudent to make sure no hostiles lay hidden behind each of them, but Umi knew that they did not have the time to stop to make sure that the entire facility was secure.

At the very end of the hallway, the call light to the elevator blinked on and off as she pressed her palm against it. The clicking of machinery echoed down the elevator shaft as she watched the indicator light blink on once it arrived. _Odd_ , she thought to herself as they stepped into it, leaving the dark hallway behind. _I would have assumed that the elevator would be waiting on this floor._

She had no further time to dwell on that fact as the elevator arrived at its destination with a soft _ding_. Umi poked her head out of the elevator, peering down both sides of the landing before stepping out completely.

"Which way?" Maki hissed, looking around cautiously with one hand on her rucksack and the fingers of the other curled around the barrel of her gun.

When Eli didn't immediately reply to the redhead's question, Umi checked her phone. "The right," she murmured back. "Anything on the security feed, Eli?"

When the response came, whatever it was, Umi couldn't make it out—it was indistinct and fraught with static, as though there was interference… or her earpiece was malfunctioning.

 _But that can't be, because Eli checked all of these before she gave them to us. What… is going on?_

Maki snorted in annoyance as she strode forward, palming the door control to the only door at the very end of the hallway. The indicator winked green as the metal doors slid open effortlessly, and Maki strode through them without hesitation.

Umi followed her, somewhat more cautiously, her sense of unease sharpening as she fiddled with her earpiece again, trying to figure out what was wrong with it.

"Umi—" Eli's voice broke through the static. "Don't—" Another burst of garbled feedback cut her off.

"What happened?" she demanded, holding her left hand over her ear to in order to focus on what Eli was saying.

There was another whine from the speaker before the interference cleared up. " _Umi!_ Umi, I got through; the hack won't hold long, but listen—"

Whatever it was that Eli wanted to say, Umi would never find out, because she was cut off by the sound of the door closing behind them, the metal sliding shut as Umi heard the click of a safety being released on a gun. Distracted by what Eli had been trying to tell her, she whipped around to find herself staring into the dark eyes of Satou Fubuki and some bounty hunters she knew he considered to be his friends, one of whom had just released the safety on his shotgun.

"Sorry Sonoda," he said to her smoothly, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he tested the weight of his weapon against the floor. "I know what you and your little friend are here to do—I'm afraid that I can't let that happen."


	27. Heaven is a Place on Earth - Part 2

"What are you trying to do?" Umi asked the bounty hunter in a steady voice, dropping her left hand from the earpiece in her ear and tightening the grip of the fingers of her right around the curve of her bow. She took a step back, heartbeat pounding in her sternum and neck, and caught Maki's eye out of the corner of her own. The look on the redhead's face was impassive, her lips pressed together in a thin line, but Umi could just discern the concealed panic in her wide amethyst eyes.

In that moment, it hit her how utterly foolish it had been to allow her friend to come on this particular operation.

 _If we both make it out of this alive, I am never allowing this again._

Snorting as though she had said something ridiculous, Satou raised his weapon until it rested on his broad shoulders. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Sonoda? If that cure is effective, _you_ will be ruining my lifestyle. If I told you _you_ were taking away my meal ticket, I don't think you'd be very happy about it either."

As he spoke, Umi looked around, silently marking each point where one of the men crouched, sights locked. Including Satou, there were six bounty hunters present in the small, cramped room. There would be precisely little cover for the two of them if Satou and his friends decided to shoot now, and it came to her that she needed to buy more time until she could come up with a plan.

"Do the lives of the millions of citizens in Tokyo mean nothing to you?" she asked him, making an effort to keep her voice slow and calm as she raised her hand again to press her fingers against her earpiece once, hoping Eli could see a solution that she could not.

Satou laughed. "I wouldn't bother with that, if I were you." He jerked a finger at one of the men standing beside him. "Unfortunately, as talented as she is, it'll take Ayase more than a few minutes to get through our jamming tech. If you'd bothered to ask her to go out with me like I wanted, then maybe I would've shared them with her."

Umi froze. _How does he know?_ She could not figure out where Satou would have gotten that information, unless he was much better connected than she had thought.

He smirked again. "But back to your question. Tell me, Sonoda—do you honestly think I care if some defenceless citizens fall victim to the Ceresis? The way I see it, the more Ceresis there are, the more money I'll be able to make." He paused. "Besides… have _you_ thought about what you're doing? What… are the lives of the Edenra victims just collateral damage to you at this point? I thought you were _better_ than that."

Quashing the flare of pain that the question wrought from somewhere deep in her chest, Umi grit her teeth together at the accusation. As twisted as the words were, they contained a partial truth that she could not deny.

"I don't have to justify myself to you," she said finally.

The grin on Satou's face widened. "Good. I'm not interested in hearing it anyways. After all, you'll be dead before anyone else has a chance to ask you again."

The moment the man raised a hand to signal to his squad members to attack, Umi drew an arrow from the sheath on her back, and fired.

The shot pierced one of the men crouching on the floor with his pistol raised in the neck, splattering crimson across the tiles. Satou howled in anger as she rolled to the right, ducking behind an overturned chair before she closed the distance between herself and Maki within three paces.

Forcing Maki's head down behind the singular desk at the back of the room with her free hand, Umi adjusted her position on her ankles as she reloaded her bow. She winced at the impact of bullets on the metal surface and knew that the integrity of the desk would not last long. She had to act before that.

There was no time to explain what she was doing to Maki—she had barely had time to come up with her current plan while Satou had been talking. "Do you trust me?" she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

For a brief heartbeat, Umi met Maki's defiant gaze, their amethyst depths burning.

Finally, the redhead nodded once. "Then stay put," Umi instructed her, poking her head around the corner of the desk and drawing her bow back.

The point of her arrow drove into the nearest bounty hunter's knee, not enough to eliminate him as a threat, but enough to incapacitate for the time being as he collapsed, dropping his pistol to grip his knee with both hands.

Reloading as she scrambled away from the desk, almost doubled over in an attempt to minimize the target painted on her back, Umi took aim at the man closest to Maki. Maki fired her gun the same time Umi released her grip on the string—the man stumbled backwards, unable to dodge both projectiles at once as Maki's shot hit him in the shoulder, tearing open a hole where his arm met his shoulder joint.

"You bitch," Satou growled at her as he charged towards her, large sword easily held in one hand. His momentum carried him forward far faster than Umi had anticipated it to.

Sidestepping away from him, the side of his blade sank into the metal wall of the room, ripping into it as easily as if it had been butter. He barely flinched when she buried an arrow into his left arm in an attempt to slow him down: he tore it out as effortlessly as if it had been nothing more than a splinter.

Digging into her pocket, she pulled out one of the items that Rin had insisted she take, even though they were not something she would use if she had the choice. Now she was glad that she had, because she had precisely little options left to her—especially since the remaining two men that were part of Satou's party were closing in on her, having identified her as the obvious threat.

Tearing off the safety of the grenade with her teeth, Umi let it drop onto the floor before rolling away as fast as possible.

Not fast enough.

The frag grenade exploded, shrapnel flying in every direction, and Umi fervently hoped that Maki had had the sense to listen to her instructions to stay behind the desk. She hissed as one of the pieces sliced through her leg, the blood that spilled past her ankle hot and sticky.

Pressing her free hand to her thigh, she risked glancing over the top of the chair that she had hidden behind, finding with a small degree of satisfaction that the two men who had been closing in on her had been caught in the blast.

Movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention, and Umi narrowed her eyes as Satou heaved his bulk out from the corner where he'd taken cover from her explosive.

He wiped his mouth and face with a hand as he advanced towards her. "You think you're clever, don't you, Sonoda?" He almost bared his bloody teeth at her as he approached her, his uneven steps slow and deliberate on purpose.

Umi spared a second to check the hand that she had pressed to her leg, stifling the panic that rose in her chest to see that her palm was stained with red. There was no way she would be outrunning him on that leg, and she did _not_ like her chances at close range with him.

"Umi!" Eli's voice broke through the static that had been the only thing present on the other end of her earpiece for the last few minutes—the fact had barely registered over the sound of her heartbeat in her throat and ears, threatening to drown out all other sounds.

Somewhere, in the clinical part of her mind that was still capable of logical rationalization, it dawned on her that Eli had finally managed to get through whatever jamming technology that Satou had brought with him.

"Shoot the tank above his head," Eli instructed her, her tone distressed and urgent.

 _What?_

Staring past Satou's shoulder, Umi spotted a dark green tank in question set into the ceiling of the room, the bottom of its metal casing already dented from the earlier blast. But with the man moving away from it towards her, she wasn't sure if the single arrow that would be the only shot she would have time to fire would be enough.

Adrenaline surged through her limbs as Umi forced herself to get up, knowing that she _had_ to try, even if the odds were against her. Drawing back her arrow, she saw Satou smirk when she missed him by a significant margin.

The tip of the arrow sunk into the metal tank's underside, but it wasn't enough to break it. The breath left her lungs in a gasp—there would be no time for her to reload to try again.

A single gunshot rang out from somewhere to her left and behind her; the force of the bullet did what the arrow could not, and the tank burst open.

Billows of steam filled the room as the tank decompressed, sending two gallons of compressed extinguisher fluid crashing down onto Satou's shoulders. The pungent smell of antifreeze filled her nostrils as the man began to scream, before the sound was abruptly cut off by a choked gargle.

Umi gave herself five seconds to catch her breath before she stood up shakily, struggling to see in the haze of steam.

Maki clambered over the desk behind her, her pistol still clutched in one hand with the other covering her nose and mouth. She was breathing hard, and Umi could make out the fine tremble of her hand. "I told you," the redhead wheezed, "that I wasn't useless."

The comment seemed so out of place that she almost laughed before Umi remembered where they were. "Come on," Umi rasped, testing her weight on her leg as she turned, finding that if she moved slowly, it held without complaint.

The extinguisher tank was still dripping coolant as the two of them warily approached the bounty hunter lying on the floor a few feet away from them. Neither of them lowered their weapons as they drew closer.

Chemical burns covered the exposed skin on the bounty hunter's face and arms, an angry blistering red that would have made her wince had she seen it on anyone else. As things were, Umi found that she did not feel sorry for the man lying in front of them whatsoever.

Carefully stepping over his sword, she kicked it away from him with her good leg. When she was close enough to make out his features, the corner of her mouth twitched in disgust when she realized that he was grinning at her.

"What's the matter, Sonoda? Too chicken to finish me off?" he coughed. "Or have you realized that what I said was the truth?"

Umi felt rather than heard Maki stop just behind her shoulder, her pistol still held tightly in both hands, though it was lowered.

"Neither," she replied simply, before removing an arrow from the sheath on her back.

Loading it in her bow, she paused before she released its string. "You may be right," she conceded quietly. "No one will ever say that we haven't made mistakes. Our actions _do_ have consequences. No one can deny that—and I would never claim not to bear responsibility for what will happen here today. But with that responsibility comes a duty to make sure that in the future we have chosen, we do everything in our power to make things right. Not just for ourselves, but for the people who have chosen to make that decision with us. But I would never expect someone like you—who is incapable of thinking of anyone except yourself—to understand that."

Umi did not wait for Satou's response to her statement. If there was one, she had no interest in hearing it.

She closed her eyes for the briefest heartbeat, and fired.

Overhead, the steady dripping of the coolant slowed to a trickle as her gaze lingered on the unmoving body in front of her for a few moments.

Turning away, she found herself looking into the intent, amethyst gaze of her redheaded friend. Maki's expression was almost unreadable. Underneath the grim, determined set of her mouth, there was something else that she could not immediately discern. Was it sorrow? Umi could not be sure because Maki blinked a few times, and it was gone.

However, when she spoke, her tone was as crisp as ever. "You alright?" the redhead asked her, giving her leg a concerned glance.

Umi gave it a brief, cursory inspection. The wound was deep, but it didn't look like anything that was immediately life-threatening. "It can wait."

The physician exhaled. "Okay. Remind me not to let you run off once we're done here."

On slightly unsteady, shaky legs, Maki made her way over to where she'd dropped her rucksack, and picked it up before she pressed a hand to her earpiece, striding up to the large computer that had not escaped some damage. "Eli?" Umi heard her ask. "Please tell me this thing is still working."

"I won't be able to tell you anything until you turn it on," came the reply a few moments later. As much as she hated herself for the observation, Umi could not help but note the slight tremor in her voice that had not been there before. She bit her lip before she could say something, knowing that _that_ was the last thing Eli wanted at the moment.

As the system rebooted itself, Umi stood behind the chair that Maki had sat down in to look at the screen over her shoulder. She watched her as she compared her notes with the parameters on the screen in front of her, adjusting them when they did not match.

Other than the occasional query about how a particular program worked, no one said a word. The silence hung between the three of them was heavy, but not in a way that prevented anyone from saying anything. There were perhaps hundreds of things any one of them could have said—it was just that there was no point in doing so. Even though no one was voicing them out loud, somehow, Umi knew that the thoughts currently in her head could not be that different from her friends'.

 _No. They're family. I would never have made it here without them. And I know that even now, there's a part of us all that does not believe we're standing here. Somehow, it feels surreal. If you told me that everything that led us up to this moment was a dream, I don't think I would be that surprised._

"Umi." Maki's voice broke her out of her thoughts. She looked up to find that Maki had taken the cylinder containing the results of her research out of her bag, holding it out towards her. "Can you put that in the pneumatic system in the wall?" She pointed to their right, where a tube system waited.

"Okay."

The container was heavy in her arms as she walked over to the space in the wall. Her extremities felt numb. She could barely feel the throbbing in her leg anymore as she palmed the control next to the tube system to release it. Gingerly, she placed the cylinder into its bracket, and resealed the panel. "Is that okay?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Yeah." Maki nodded once as Umi made her way back to her. She was checking the parameters on the distribution program one more time, occasionally making minor adjustments to a specific value. Eventually, a single command prompt appeared on the screen. The option highlighted by the program was _proceed._

Maki turned around then, the fingers of one hand hovering over the enter key on the keyboard. Her fingers were trembling.

When Umi met her gaze, she knew that she was not the only one whose eyes were stinging. Maki clenched the fingers of her right hand into a fist, her nails digging into her creased palm so hard that Umi could see the whiteness of her knuckles highlighted by the glow of the screen. "Are we… really doing this?" she asked. It sounded almost like a plea, as if she wanted her to tell her no.

Umi swallowed. "We've… come too far to turn back now," she said at last, unable to continue—unable to put the tightness in her chest to words.

Maki closed her eyes for a few moments before she opened them again. "I know. But… I can't—I-I don't think I can do this by myself."

She took a step forward then, closing her right hand over Maki's just over the enter key. "You're won't be."

Umi felt her exhale, her shoulders dropping as she let out a long breath. "Okay."

Someone's hands were shaking. Whether it was Maki's or hers, Umi could not tell. Perhaps it was them both. Air fought a war with her muscles on the way out of her throat and it burned on the way out.

"Ready?" Maki asked her in a quiet voice. It was almost a whisper.

Not trusting her voice, Umi nodded.

Two sets of fingers hit the enter key once.

* * *

 _"Ready?"_ Maki's almost inaudible voice issued over her headset.

The singular word balled in Eli's throat, strangling her voice. Her shoulders were shaking; unable to find something to ground herself with, there was only one thing left within her control for her to do.

Removing her earpiece, she let her head drop, her bangs falling into her face. Gripping the headset with both hands in order to stop them from shaking too, she closed her eyes, and counted.

She didn't get very far before other voices shattered the illusion of silence around her. She heard the raised voices of triumph and the reports from the outer districts of Tokyo being repeated by someone close to her, but none of it meant anything to her. Nothing seemed real.

Time slipped by her in seconds, then minutes. It was like the rest of the world had pushed past her, stranding her in a moment that she could not move on from.

Then, a gentle pair of arms slid around her shoulders, warm against the numbness of her extremities as Nozomi embraced her tenderly from behind, resting her cheek against the top of her head. Eli gripped the pair of hands resting on her collarbone with her own, holding onto them as though they were a lifeline.

Nozomi did not speak—nor did she push her to speak—as she stood there behind her. Although each breath caught painfully in the back of her throat and her lungs felt too big for her chest, Eli found that there were no tears. Had there been anything but cold numbness in the rest of her body, she might've wondered why.

Instead, she forced herself to keep breathing, concentrating on making each shallow breath as even as possible. Apart from the steady warmth of Nozomi's hands clutched tightly underneath her own, it was the only thing that she could allow herself to focus on.

The moments passed in silence until at some point, Eli became aware of the fact that the room around them had become quiet, and she raised her head. The slight movement caught Nozomi's attention and Eli felt her gently slip her hands free out from underneath her grip so that she could walk around the chair she was sitting in in order to look at her.

The violet-haired woman's expression was gentle. "Can I show you something?" she asked softly.

Mutely, Eli nodded, and allowed her to pull her to her feet.

Taking her hand, Nozomi led her to the balcony on the other side of the conference room that they had been occupying.

Outside, an early winter sunset stained the sky a deep, fiery crimson under ragged storm clouds gathered just above the horizon. Drifting down from the grey clouds above them were large, wet flakes, but she knew that it wasn't snow that was falling from the sky.

Eli held out a hand and watched one of them land on her open palm before slowly dissolving. Closing her fingers over it, she pressed that hand to her chest as though it would stifle the painful rhythm of her heartbeat.

"Look," Nozomi told her, gesturing not to the falling flakes around them, but to the courtyard of the district building on the other side of the balcony railing.

She looked.

It took her several seconds to recognize the courtyard—the yellowing grass of the lawn was barely visible underneath a large gathering of people, some holding umbrellas, others holding out their hands to catch the falling precipitation just as she had. To her surprise, she realized that the people she was looking at weren't just the politicians and the members of the rich and affluent that frequented the district building on a daily basis. Amongst them, she spotted ordinary citizens of Tokyo that she might've passed by on the streets, standing side by side with the people she knew they had mistrusted for longer than she could remember.

But the atmosphere of the gathering was neither tense nor suspicious, as she would've anticipated given how she had seen the two groups of citizens interact before. She had observed these people in so many different states over the years—blissfully ignorant, terrified, protesting, hating the very existence of the Ceresis, and even killing each other out of fear and misunderstanding. She had doubted them—doubted that they would ever escape the vicious cycle that they had brought upon themselves.

Once upon a time, she had been one of them.

But there were no traces of that past in the courtyard below her. Instead, they were standing together, gathered in a shared understanding of what had happened and united in a mutual desire to move forward.

Nozomi turned to her. "I know that neither of us will ever forget the past," she murmured softly. "Or what it cost us to make it here to this day. But… we can't forget that we still have a future. No matter what happens, tomorrow will still come. I know that you've seen what the darkness in this city looks like over the past eight years. Your entire adult life has been shaped by what that darkness has brought about. But when you look at this in front of you… can you believe that on the other side of that darkness is the hope for a future?"

Eli looked at her then, finding the unspoken empathy and sorrow in Nozomi's emerald gaze and the tenuous, humbled hope underneath it. Wordlessly, she nodded.

A small, warm smile formed on Nozomi's lips as she reached for her other hand until she held them both in hers. "Then, are you ready to face what tomorrow will bring us, whatever it may be? Even after everything that has happened, there's still part of an entire city that needs to be rebuilt. I don't mean just physically. I think it's time for a change that's long overdue." She paused. "Are you willing to help me?"

The superficiality of the question was not lost on her. Swallowing past the swell of emotion at the back of her throat, Eli returned the firm grip on her fingers with pressure of her own. Her view of the scene in front of her hazy with unshed tears and her voice was hoarse and tremulous when she finally spoke.

"I am."


	28. Epilogue - Catch the Moment

**Notes:** So, here it is - the ending of this fic. (Apart from the two side-stories that will follow as postscript extras, of course!)

It's short and sweet as promised, but somehow, I think I had more trouble with this ending piece than some of the really long chapters that this fic has had. I had a helluva time editing this because I really wanted this to sound right to me, and I hope that you guys are just as happy with what the epilogue contains as I am.

 **Chapter Title:** Catch the Moment - LiSA

* * *

 _"The moment my voice rang out, my heart started counting the limits of this life:_  
 _Even if this wish keeps coming true over and over, I don't want it to end._  
 _The second hand of this world, running with sweat on its brow, will someday leave me stranded here, unmoving—_  
 _How many more times will I be able to smile with you?_  
 _So I'm going to test my own limits, and I'll catch the moment."_

—LiSA, "Catch the Moment"

* * *

 _April 2031_

Spring had come late to Tokyo that year. It had been mid-March before there was even a hint of warmer weather, and only now—three weeks later—were the blossoms of the trees that lined the neat, orderly streets of the city in full bloom.

Stepping out of the car, Eli pushed back a stray strand of blonde hair, tucking it underneath a hairpin, and smoothed out her blouse. The fabric itched around her neckline slightly and the stiff material of the collar had rubbed uncomfortably against the back of her neck for the past three hours—had it been up to her, it certainly would _not_ have been her outfit of choice had she not had a conference to attend with Nozomi that morning. Unfortunately, turtlenecks, jeans, and boots were not proper attire for a presentation at a senate meeting, and to her dismay, her hair had also had to match the occasion.

She resisted the urge to rake her fingers through the tight bun that one of Nozomi's attendants had bullied her long hair into that morning.

From somewhere behind them, the sound of the walled fence being torn down filtered through the trees, muted and indistinct against the birdsong that filled the forest around them. The acrid tang of Namidite lingered, as it always did outside of the city's perimeters—but here, it was smothered by the clean, soft scent of the petals above them and the petrichor that rose from the earth.

Eli felt Nozomi gently touch her shoulder. "Is it that way?" she inquired, pointing a gloved finger at the worn pathway through the trees ahead of them.

Looking in the direction that she was indicating, Eli nodded. "I think so," she replied.

Nozomi took her hand as the two of them carefully picked their way through the undergrowth that had grown to take over the paved walkway. Although the park on the other side of Tokyo Bay had not been maintained in almost a decade, large, delicate blossoms still hung from the tree branches above their heads, waving gently in the breeze.

The cherry blossoms were not the only unexpected thing that had become a part of the long-abandoned park. Someone—perhaps a someone who had also lost someone they knew to Edenra—had placed a bouquet of early spring flowers by a wrought-iron cross that stood at the base of a hill that overlooked Tokyo Bay. It didn't take long for other passersby to do the same—a silent, poignant tribute to the all the victims of Edenra who would never have a proper grave.

Inexplicably, against all the odds that she could think of, the site had become a memorial.

The two of them walked in silence until they reached the top of a low hill, shaded from the sun by a shroud of pink and white. From its crest, the waters of Tokyo Bay were visible, dappled a deep blue by the sunlight.

Nozomi suddenly stopped beside her, holding her free hand up to her face to shield her eyes from the bright sunshine so that she could peer down at the small gathering of people below. "Is that them?" she asked, turning her head in Eli's direction curiously.

It was.

Kotori was the first to notice their arrival, turning her head from where it was resting against Umi's shoulder to wave at them with one arm. "You're here!" she called, her musical voice carrying against the peaceful backdrop of the park.

Her greeting caused both Maki and Umi to turn around. Something that resembled a disdainful scowl twitched at the corners of Maki's mouth as she looked her up and down, her arms crossed over her chest. "I hope you're not going to make a habit out of being late now that you've become part of the impressionable," she remarked, wrinkling her nose.

Eli gave her a dry smile. "I'm sure you'll be the first to remind me if I do."

The redhead snorted. "Damn right I will be."

Beside her, Umi sighed and shook her head. "This isn't what we're here for today," she said evenly. "We chose to come here on this day for a reason. Let's try not to forget that."

The bounty hunter looked at her then, the seriousness in her amber gaze belying the slight hint of annoyance in her tone, tilting her head slightly in a silent question. Eli looked back at her, swallowing the sudden tightness at the back of her throat and pressed her lips together. She nodded once.

Nozomi tightened her grip on her right hand as the five of them approached the growing memorial left by citizens of Tokyo, for whom the past was as unforgettable as it was to her—to each of them.

When they were finally standing directly in front of it, Maki took her other hand, joining their all of their hands together in a gesture of both support and unspoken respect.

In unison, all of them bent in a low bow.

No one spoke as they stood there. Their silence carried far more than words would ever begin to convey.

Eli closed her eyes when the familiar ache worked its way up her chest, tilting her head up slightly to stop any tears that might escape from her control.

When Maki finally let go of her hand, five minutes later, the fingers of her left hand were numb. Nozomi's hold on her other hand was less painful, but Eli could feel the way her fingers searched for support—a reminder that neither of them were alone.

When she turned to look at her friends, she saw Kotori gently wipe away a tear on one cheek with a hand, still holding onto Umi with the other, before the young woman smiled. It was sad, but genuine, as she reached up to brush a fallen petal from where it had settled in Umi's dark hair.

"Well," Maki said, finally breaking the silence. "I have to be back in the city to meet someone, so unfortunately, I have to go." She flattened out the creases in her lab coat and raked her fingers through her tangled red hair in preparation to leave.

Umi straightened from where she had bent to rearrange the bouquet of flowers left by Kotori. "Are you meeting that Yazawa Nico person again?" she asked in a casual, offhand tone, turning her head to look at the redhead.

Eli watched the heat rise immediately in Maki's face as she took a step backwards involuntarily, thrusting one hand defensively into the pocket of lab coat where she knew she was keeping her phone. "H-How do you know about that?" she spluttered, flushing a dark red. "Have you been looking though my stuff?"

Nozomi laughed softly beside her as Umi turned around, crossing her arms. "No," the blue-haired bounty hunter deadpanned. "You asked me to get you your phone from the countertop last time. She just happened to send you a text while I was bringing it to you." She shrugged. "Was this not something you wanted everyone else to know?"

"No!" Maki snarled at her. "I mean, I don't really care—I-It's not like this is something _that_ important, or anything. I just wish you didn't have to talk about my business in front of everyone like it's the latest piece of gossip!"

Eli raised an eyebrow skeptically as Nozomi took a step forward, not trying very hard to hide the smile playing at the corner of her lips. "You know, I'm fairly sure that you wouldn't be this worked up about this if it wasn't something important," the violet-haired woman remarked blithely. "Are you sure you're not just nervous because you've never gone on a date before?"

The colour in Maki's cheeks deepened. " _W-What_? What do you mean, _a date_? Who—Look, I never said _anything_ about a date, okay? I don't know what Umi's trying to imply here, but it's _not a date!"_

Growling in indignation, the redhead spun on her heel and angrily strode toward the direction of the city, not bothering to look back. Eli watched her go, amusement prickling underneath her skin at the stiff set of Maki's shoulders as she stalked away.

Umi had just opened her mouth to say something else when Kotori gasped, staring at the watch on her wrist.

"Umi!" the brunette exclaimed, tugging on her fiancée's sleeve. "We have an appointment at the wedding planner's office in twenty minutes! Come on—we're going to be _late_!"

The blue-haired bounty hunter threw them a helpless, imploring look over her shoulder as Kotori hauled her by the hand towards the overgrown pathway that led out of the park and back into Tokyo.

Eli laughed. "Godspeed, Umi," she told her as the pair of them disappeared from sight.

Finally, it was quiet again, the sound of the waves lapping gently against the shore of the bay reclaiming the immediate space around them.

Eli turned back towards the cross at the foot of the hill, reaching out the fingers of one hand to gently brush the large, heavily-scented petals of the bouquet left by Kotori and Umi. Uncannily, as though it was meant to be, the shape of the flower reminded her of the hairpin that her sister had always worn.

The familiar ache in her chest reawakened then, a dull ache that she knew would never completely go away. She felt Nozomi take a step closer to her to lean against her shoulder, their arms pressed firmly together. "Are you okay?" she asked gently.

 _No matter how many times this world may end up repeating the same mistakes that it's already made, this is still the city that she wanted me to change._

She took the hand that gently brushed against hers, and held it. "Yeah," Eli replied.

 _I remember. And I will never forget._


	29. Postscript 1

**Notes:** So, here we are with the first of the collection of side stories that I promised everyone.

Some of these are deleted scenes from this fic that I couldn't find a good spot for within the main story, others were inspired from conversations I had with some friends.

Roughly, these are in chronological order, with the first taking place before the storyline began, and the last two from after the epilogue. Tacked on at the very end of this is the list of songs/albums that inspired me while I was writing this fic - a couple people asked me for a song list so I decided to include them here.

I hope that you guys enjoy these short stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

* * *

Interlude 1: In which Soldier Game discovers never to let Maki cook ever again

Umi met Eli outside of the downtown office building that she was working in that afternoon.

"How was work?" she asked her automatically when the blonde exited through the glass doors of the lobbying, retying her long hair into a ponytail.

Eli scowled at her as she snapped the elastic into place. "The same. Did you really expect the members of the corporate rich to have changed since the last time you asked me that?"

"No," Umi replied, adjusting the strap of the bow on her shoulder as they began walking. "But it's a nice sentiment."

"It would be, if it was within the realm of possibility. Speaking of nice sentiments, did you tell Maki she was in charge of dinner tonight?" Eli asked her, looking at the inside of her wrist for the time on her watch.

Umi gave her a grim smile. "I did. I can't say she looked enthused when I told her, though."

Eli laughed. "How bad can it be? She's spent a few years watching us do it. If nothing else, she has the microwave."

"She does, but don't forget you had to teach her how to use the vacuum cleaner the first time we told her to clean up the apartment," Umi reminded her dryly.

"Good point."

Umi opened her mouth to say something else when her phone buzzed in her pocket. Pulling it out, she scanned the message quickly, unable to suppress an exasperated smile as she read its contents.

"Kotori again?" Eli asked her, catching the expression on her face.

Umi nodded. "She wants to know if I can make it to her coworker's party with her over the weekend. I don't like it, but I suppose I'll have to go with her."

She looked around to find a small smile playing at the corners of Eli's lips at her words. "You really care about her, don't you?" her friend asked her, her voice suddenly quiet and sincere.

Umi took a breath, holding it for a few moments before letting it out, looking up at the fiery orange sunset above Tokyo's skyline. "If you put it like that, I suppose you're right." Unconsciously, the fingers of her free hand tightened into a fist in her pocket. "I just…" She paused, searching for the right words to convey how she felt. "She is the best thing to happen to me since then. I know it. So… even if I don't like some of the things she wants me to do, I want to be there for her."

The smile on Eli's face widened. "Keep this up, and you might actually turn out to like going to social events."

Sliding her phone back into her pocket, Umi grimaced. "And I sincerely hope that that does not happen." _But even if it does, it's worth it. I know that too._ Out loud, she said, "So… what about you?"

"What about me?" Eli asked her, raising an eyebrow.

Umi gave her a sidelong glance. "You know what I mean. Isn't it about time you… found someone? For yourself, I mean."

Eli frowned, and was quiet for a few moments—enough time for Umi to wonder if that was not a question she should have asked.

When the blonde finally spoke, however, her tone was musing, rather than offended. "I don't know," she said slowly. "Like we discussed earlier, I guess it's a nice sentiment. It's just… I've never had time to think about any of that—and even if I did, I don't think I've ever been attracted to anyone in my life before. That's all."

The candid, astute way in which she spoke made Umi press her lips together; to push for a further answer was none of her business and she was all too aware of the walls Eli usually erected around herself. Those walls came down ever so slightly when she was around either Maki or herself, but Umi knew that her personal life was not something Eli particularly liked to discuss, and decided it was wiser for her to stop pursuing the topic.

When she unlocked the front door to their apartment twenty-five minutes later, she wrinkled her nose at the acrid, burnt smell drifting from the kitchen. Beside her, Eli inhaled once through her nose before coughing, holding the crook of her elbow over the lower half of her face.

"Maki!" Umi called into the apartment, trying not to breathe in the smoke. "What is going on? Are you okay?"

"Are you trying to burn the apartment down?" Eli yelled after her, the end of her question cut off by a cough.

" _No!_ " came the indignant reply. "If only this stupid, goddamn thing was easier to use, we wouldn't be having this problem!"

Exchanging a dubious look with Eli, the two of them stepped into the apartment. When they reached the kitchen, Umi stared at the black smoke unfurling from behind the microwave door that nearly obscured the silhouette of the redhead standing beside it, flapping frantically at it with her hands.

"What _happened_?" she asked, setting down her bow quickly on the dining room table to open the window above the sink.

Eli cautiously approached the still-smoking appliance, carefully prising open the door with one hand as Maki took a step back, crossing her arms over her chest and turning her head to one side.

"You asked me to make dinner, remember?"

"Go on," Eli told her, reaching into one of the drawers for a pair of tongs. Umi watched her reach into the microwave with the utensil, carefully removing what looked like the still-smoking, blackened remains of a plastic container before dropping it on the counter.

"So I tried to heat that up," Maki snapped, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

Umi took a few steps forward to examine the plastic container that Eli had left on the countertop. Picking it up with a rag, she attempted to read the characters on the outside of the flimsy cup underneath its blackened exterior.

"Instant noodles?" she asked, furrowing her brows. "How did this happen?"

"I don't know, okay?" Maki fired back. "Aren't you supposed to heat it up, then add water? Isn't that how it works?"

Umi found herself meeting Eli's incredulous cerulean gaze over the potted plant in the middle of the countertop. The two of them stared at each other for a full five seconds as Maki tried to gauge their reaction to her response.

" _What_?" the redhead asked eventually, evidently incensed by the lack of an immediate response.

"Maki," Umi began, unsure if she was supposed to sound exasperated or stunned, though she had a nasty feeling that what ended up coming out was a combination of both. "You're supposed to put the water in _first_ , or else—"

"Or else _this_ happens," Eli finished for her, putting down her tongs and soaking another rag in the sink so she could wipe the counter space around the microwave.

"Is it broken?" Umi asked her, watching her work out of the corner of her eye.

"Probably," the blonde replied without looking up from her task. "I mean, I wouldn't risk putting anything else in there."

Umi sighed, turning back to Maki. "Perhaps it's better if you leave dinner up to me tonight."

"H-How was I supposed to know that you were supposed to put in the water first?" the redhead demanded. "It's not my fault that the goddamn thing doesn't work that way." With that, she crossed her arms over her chest and strode out into the living room to where she spent most of her evenings studying.

The squeak of the rag against the counter behind her had stopped for a few heartbeats before it resumed. Umi did not need to turn around to know that that was Eli's reaction to what Maki had just said, before it resumed. The kitchen was silent for a few minutes as she stood there, trying to process it for herself.

"Are you sure it's just _tonight_ you don't want her cooking?" Eli asked her, breaking the silence after she closed the door of the now-useless microwave and wringing out her rag in the sink.

Umi looked at the remains of the plastic cup in her hand. "No. It might be better if we share that duty in the future. For the sake of our health, and hers, to be honest."

Eli laughed. "Probably wise," she agreed.

* * *

Interlude 2: In which Umi discovers the meaning of alcoholism

Maki looked up from her lab notes to find Umi looking through the back of her laboratory near her kitchenette. Presumably, the bounty hunter was looking for something edible before she had to leave—privately, she wished her luck. _Her_ definition of _edible_ was sadly not up to either of her friends' standards, and she doubted that Umi would find something that she would deem suitable.

She flipped a page in her lab notebook to reread her results from the previous week. Chewing on the end of her pen as she highlighted some of her results to bring up at her next conference, she had almost tuned Umi out when her friend's voice broke through her concentration.

"Maki, what is this?"

Maki looked up to find Umi holding a bottle of her wine in one hand, examining the label underneath the bright glow of the laboratory lights. She raised a dark red eyebrow, tapping the pen on the surface of her notebook.

"My wine. What else would it be, Umi?"

Umi looked at her, brows furrowed. "Why do you keep wine in your laboratory?"

"I don't know," Maki replied sarcastically, one of her shoulders rising in a shrug before she let it drop. "So I can drink it when I feel like it?"

The blue-haired bounty hunter frowned, turning the bottle over in her hand to look at the back of the label at the price. "You keep wine this expensive in your laboratory?"

"Yeah? I don't want to drink that cheap crap they serve at bars, much less bring it home. Have you ever heard of quality, Umi?"

"No," came the reply. "You know that I don't approve of alcohol."

Maki snorted, knowing all too well that her blue-haired friend vehemently disapproved of alcohol in all its forms before a thought crossed her mind. She smirked. "Then I've got a suggestion for you—if you've got a problem with my wine, don't ever go drinking with Eli."

* * *

Interlude 3: In which Eli discovers having the head of state as her girlfriend isn't as glamorous as it sounds

"Eli."

Maki slammed both her hands flat on the desk she was sitting at, wearing a worn-out, exasperated expression on her face as Eli regarded her over the lid of her laptop.

"Yes?" she inquired coolly, raising an eyebrow.

"Tell me," the redhead started, tightening her hands into fists. "What, exactly, do you see in her?"

When she didn't immediately react, Maki leaned in closer, narrowing her amethyst eyes. "Well?" she demanded.

Eli took _her_ to mean Nozomi.

"What happened?" she asked, avoiding the question—not because she didn't have an answer, but because she knew that no matter how well thought-out and eloquent her answer might be, it wouldn't be nearly enough satisfy the redhead when she was worked up.

Maki let out a low growl. "All I wanted to know was if she had looked through my proposal for more funding, since, you know, the research the hospital wants me to do was requested by _her_ senate. Instead of giving me a straight answer, she says, 'I don't know, Nishikino-san, do you think it's legible enough for me to read?' Like, are you serious? Who says that? Honestly Eli, she's a fucking nightmare. How the hell do you put up with her on a daily basis?"

Eli resisted the temptation to laugh out loud at her friend's recount of Nozomi's question—she could imagine the exact tone of voice the violet-haired woman had used. Laughing, however, would earn her the silent treatment from the physician standing in front of her for the next few days, and she knew it. "You know, it would be a lot less of a hassle for you to talk to her if you didn't take everything she says so seriously," she told her lightly.

The redhead glared at her. "Let me guess. She doesn't talk to _you_ like you're five."

"Well, no," Eli admitted, "but she also knows that I don't react to what she says the way you do."

Maki straightened, turning her head sharply in the other direction. "Why is always me?" she fumed. "Like, why can't she actually do something useful for once? Like, she could ban stupid, loud people from the hospital and I would call that actually productive. Now that I think about it, can you ask her that for me when you go see her?"

Eli glanced over her work at her, initially unsure if her friend was serious or not before she realized that she was. "Are you serious?" she asked in disbelief, just as Umi opened the door to the laboratory to let herself in.

"Are you serious about what?" the blue-haired bounty hunter asked, hanging up her bow on a hook near the foot of the stairs. Eli couldn't help but notice that she already looked harassed—there was no doubt in her mind that Umi had been wedding planning with Kotori again. Few things tested Umi's patience as much as tulle, skirts and flowers, and if the look on her face was any indication, Kotori had gotten her fiancée to agree to something else she was already regretting again.

Not missing a beat, Maki turned around to face her. "You know, Umi, now that Eli's dating our distinguished head of state, have you ever considered asking her about a new law you'd like to pass in this city?"

Umi looked from one of them to the other, clearly wondering what had incited that particular question, before she shook her head. Before Eli could open her mouth to voice an objection, Umi strode over to the other table, pulling out a chair and sitting down in it, an exasperated expression on her face.

"If she could ban excessive weddings, that would be the best thing I have heard all day," she muttered under her breath, burying her forehead in a hand.

Maki smirked, turning back to her. "Well?" she asked. "What do you think, Eli? Do you think you can get all those passed as new laws for us?"

"Are you kidding me?" Eli asked, finally goaded into a less-than-collected response. "Who do you think I am?"

"I'll tell you who," Maki replied smoothly. "You're the district ruler of Tokyo's _girlfriend._ Please don't tell me that doesn't get you _some_ sort of free pass with her."

"It won't be a free pass for long if you think I'm actually going to ask her all of this stupid crap," she retorted. "That's an abuse of power, and you know it."

The redhead snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "So... what's the point of dating the most powerful person in Tokyo if you're not going to take advantage of it?"

* * *

Interlude 4: In which Soldier Game attempts to rectify Umi's (non-existent) dancing skills

For what seemed like the umpteenth time, Umi missed Eli's hand and slammed her fist into her shoulder instead, which caused the blonde to wince. Muttering darkly under her breath, she walked a few paces away, shaking out her arms in an attempt to relieve her frustration.

"For the last time, Umi, this is a dance, not a wrestling match," Eli sighed as she followed her.

Umi swallowed the knee-jerk reaction to her words; instead, she headed over to the edge of the park lawn that they were practicing on, and sat down on a bench. "Let's face it Eli, if the success of my marriage is being predicted by how well I can dance this with Kotori, I may as well be doomed."

"You can dance, Umi. You just need to stop thinking about it like it's the worst thing that could happen to you."

"Sadly, _that_ is easy for _you_ to say," Umi replied, letting her head drop back on her shoulders until she was looking at the wilting blossoms the trees above them. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the fallen petals that lay scattered on the grass around them. "It's so peaceful here," she remarked, watching a small flock of birds pass by overhead in the sunset. "At least the weather is going to be nice in a few days."

"Unlike your performance in the dance Kotori picked," Maki called, striding up the long, shallow slope of grass toward them, "which was abysmal. _Please_ tell me that this isn't your… what, tenth lesson from Eli?"

Umi let out a sigh as the redhead approached. "It is," she ground out between her teeth, too worn out and frustrated with herself to rise to Maki's quick derision.

Maki pointed a finger back in the direction she had come from, jerking her head at Eli. "You. Go and help Kotori with her flower placements before she suffocates me with the smell over there. Clearly, whatever you two have been doing isn't working. _I'll_ teach her."

"It's not her," Umi said dejectedly, "I just—"

"Yeah yeah," Maki waved a dismissive hand. "You're also the most skilled archer I know, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to be facing you in a hand to hand fight. Therefore, I refuse to believe that this talent does not reside within you." She made a shooing motion at Eli, who was standing a foot or two away from them. "I believe I told you to go away? You're putting too much pressure on her just by standing there. Go help Kotori before she comes screaming for her fiancée."

Eli shot her an uncertain glance, a silent question in her cerulean gaze as she looked back. Umi sighed again, before nodding at her once. _How much worse can this session go?_

"Good," Maki said the moment Eli turned away to leave, walking out onto the flat expanse of grass they had been practicing on earlier.

Unsure, but willing to make another attempt to make her unruly body obey, Umi followed her.

She faced the redhead, tense and poised for combat.

Maki laughed. "My god. Watching Eli dance has really got you convinced that you're no good, hasn't it?" She took a few steps forward, taking her wrists and shaking out her arms, snorting when she met resistance. "For starters, you need to relax. Breathe in and out through your feet."

Umi resisted the temptation to raise an eyebrow, but she did as she was told. "Fine."

"Close your eyes," Maki ordered her. "Don't frown at me, Umi. Just do it."

Even though she followed Maki's commands, focussing on her breathing and inhaling and exhaling with her feet, Umi could not resist peeking out through an eyelid.

"Stop peeking," Maki snapped immediately. "I know you've trained in hand to hand combat. You've tried fighting with your eyes closed?"

"Yes," Umi replied, unsure of what her friend was trying to accomplish with that question. "But what does that have to do with dancing? Eli just told me that this wasn't a wrestling match."

"Well, she was wrong then, wasn't she? It's been awhile since I've done karate, so you're going to have to put up with my terrible posture while we spar."

"We're sparring?" Umi asked her, startled into opening her eyes.

Maki let out an exasperated, noisy breath. "Yes. Shut up and close your eyes so you can pay attention to what we're doing."

Umi heard the sound of Maki's arm slicing through the air as she came for the side of her face and swung her right hand instinctively to sweep it aside before it could come in contact with her cheek.

"Okay," she heard the redhead say. "Keep breathing, and keep your eyes closed, but instead of blocking me, meet my hand with yours and hold it there."

Nodding, Umi concentrated on following through with every one of Maki's movements, coming into contact with her palm for the briefest heartbeat before moving onto the next motion. There was the occasional clumsy fumble as one of them would inevitable trip over their own feet, but Umi felt like the two of them were reasonably well matched when she had her eyes closed.

"Faster." Maki commanded her after a few minutes of neither of them losing their balance. "Can you anticipate me?" she challenged, tossing the words before her arm came in again, low and wide.

Umi thought about what she knew about her redheaded friend as she matched the motions, one by one. Maki was aggressive, easily flustered and refused to show any of her emotions unless she absolutely had to—a warm appreciation ignited somewhere in her chest when Umi realized that she had abandoned all of her usual pretense of dignity in order to make sure she did not make a fool of herself in her upcoming wedding.

Each incoming strike hit her hands as the two of them moved back and forth across the grass, neither of them pressing an actual attack, but refusing to give way—simply matching each other move for move.

"Good. You can open your eyes now, but don't change what you're doing. Keep breathing with your motions. Keep that fluidity you're using."

Umi opened her eyes, but did not focus her vision as she matched Maki's movements, instead taking in the entirety of her vision field around her. With a growing, relieved sense of lightness, she realized that Maki was adding in motions from the dance that Kotori had picked out, more and more of them as time went on.

For the first time, her body did not feel like uncoordinated lead as she moved. Instead, the way that Maki had introduced her to the movements allowed her limbs to feel fluid—graceful, even. Umi would have never imagined that she could apply that word to anything that did not involve the use of her bow, but it was the truth.

" _There_ you go," Maki said with a wry smile as their hands came back together before pushing apart once more, their arms sweeping back as they stepped back in unison. The quick, light movements sped up as the dance intensified, their bodies matching the fast tempo of its climax before the motions broadened, slowing to a still and profound conclusion that signified the weight of the vows the dance promised.

They stopped, both gasping, chests heaving.

"And you say… you can't dance," Maki said between breaths, hands on her knees.

Umi offered her a hand to pull her back up. "I didn't know _you_ could. You're a pretty good teacher." She tried not to sound surprised.

Maki laughed as she took her offered hand, still breathing hard. "I had to attend all sorts of formal parties with my parents when I was younger. Came with the profession, you know? Unfortunately, I had to perform at some of them, so I've taken some lessons before. I'll never beat Eli in a dance competition, but at least I can teach other people. You can dance, Umi," she reiterated, "you just can't think about it like it's something embarrassing. Thankfully for you, I'm not hopeless at defending myself."

Umi met her gaze as she straightened. "Thank you. Really. I thought I was going to make a fool of myself for sure."

Maki gave her a satisfied look. "Do that in a few days and everyone who thought that Sonoda Umi couldn't dance will be in for a nasty surprise. Keep practicing. You better not disappoint me, you got that? Or else Eli will never let me hear the end of it."

Smiling, Umi shook her head. "I'll do my best."

* * *

Interlude 5: In which Umi learns to never invite her friends to any social gathering again

Umi watched herself wince in the mirror as Eli accidentally pushed a hairpin against her scalp.

"Sorry," the blonde mumbled through a mouthful of decorative pins. "The lighting isn't that great in here, and it's hard to see. I'll try to be more careful."

They were standing—to be precise, _Eli_ was standing, while she was sitting in a chair—in the dressing room of the venue that Kotori had chosen for their wedding, and Umi was currently getting her hair pinned to the top of her head by Eli, who was the only person Kotori trusted other than herself to do her hair.

She could not help but attempt to quash the butterflies that were already beginning to flutter at the bottom of her stomach. Eli noticed her expression in the mirror. "Breathe, Umi," her friend said, frowning a little. "You've been looking forward to this day forever, haven't you?"

"Yes," she replied through lips that were pressed together. "But… I just…"

Eli's reflection smiled at her as she maneuvered another pin underneath the knot that she had created with Umi's long, dark hair. "It's Kotori," she reminded her gently. "Unless you're trying to tell me you're making a mistake."

" _No_." The conviction in her words did not waver as she spoke the monosyllable sentence. "Whatever else has happened, this isn't a mistake. I know it."

"Good," Eli told her, twisting a lock of her hair into a braid before she slid the large, decorative ornament into place above her bangs. "There. Stand up and turn around so you can look at the back."

Shakily, Umi stood and half-turned, looking at herself in the mirror. The hair at the back of her head had been twisted into an elegant knot that rose just above the hairpiece, framed by longer locks that had been left alone on purpose.

For some reason, the sight of her hair in its intricate coiffure only made the nausea in her stomach worse. "Thank you, Eli," she said, turning to her friend. Even her voice shook a little.

Eli gave her a concerned look. "I still have to do your makeup. Can I trust you to hold yourself together for two minutes while I go get dressed?"

Umi took a few steadying, deep breaths, and tried to focus on keeping them that way. "I… think so?"

The blonde rolled her eyes at her before she darted out the door.

She concentrated on counting the movement of her lungs as she sat down again, trying to ignore the way her knees were trembling. Umi tightened the fists of both hands over her knees as she tried not to look at herself in the mirror, convinced that her reflection would send her anxiety over the edge.

Eli was back before the butterflies at the bottom of her esophagus could take over completely, in a dress that flowed down her slender body like a silvery waterfall. The glint of a flowery, jewelled hairpiece in her hair that she did not recognize caught Umi's eye as her friend went to retrieve the makeup kit. "Is that from Nozomi?" she asked, trying to divert the attention to anything but herself.

Eli did not reply, but the small smile on her face told Umi everything she needed to know.

"You should be careful," she warned her as Eli gently pressed the edge of the makeup brush to her skin with an expert hand. "Or you could be the one sitting here next."

Shaking her head, Eli snorted softly in amusement, though the smile lingered at the corners of her lips. "That's a nice thought, Umi, but no. We have plenty of time before that happens. Besides," she added, raising an eyebrow, "I thought you and Maki didn't approve of her."

It seemed so long ago that she had had that particular conversation with her friends that had she not been so nervous, she would have laughed too. Now that she knew Tokyo's district ruler in person, she almost could not remember a time that she had thought otherwise.

 _Kotori was right, after all. They_ are _good for each other._

"Yes," Umi admitted truthfully. "But things have changed." She had been about to say something else— _anything_ to take her mind off what was going to happen in less than two hours—but she was cut off by the sound of the dressing room door opening.

Maki, her red hair piled into a bun on top of her head, poked her head through the doorway, wearing a slightly disdainful expression on her face. "Is she still going through with it?" she demanded, pointing at her, but directing the question at Eli.

"I'm pretty sure," the blonde replied, casting an amused look in her direction. "I'm just finishing up her makeup. Is something wrong?"

"She better," the redhead muttered under her breath, half to herself, before raising her voice. "I just went in to see Kotori. She's getting antsy."

"Well, she won't be the only one," Eli commented briefly as she took a step back to inspect the layer of pale makeup on Umi's face. "Okay, I think you're ready. Sit," she commanded, as Umi made to get up in an effort to expend the nervous energy consuming her arms and legs. " _Sit_ , Umi—all you're going to end up doing is tripping over your clothes."

Maki strode up to her, holding her dress above her ankles so as not to impede her movement, until they were practically face-to-face. "Listen to me, Umi. You're going to be fine, so stop sweating your new face off, okay? Actually take a deep breath and relax. You two belong together, and you know it. Who else is going to put up with your incessant anxiety and constant worrying?"

Maki's words were enough to draw a weak smile from her as Umi looked at her two friends, trying to calm her shaking to a trembling. "You're right," she said at last. "Thank you both." She paused. "I mean it. I wouldn't be standing without either of you."

She saw the corners of Maki's mouth turn up in a dry smile as Eli shook her head again. "Yeah yeah," her redheaded friend snapped impatiently. "Now quit getting all sentimental on us. Just get out there and get married."

* * *

Eli did not particularly like champagne, but the slightly alcoholic drink was all Umi would permit at her wedding as she sat in a somewhat secluded gazebo with Nozomi, watching the spectacle from afar.

She wasn't a particularly social person, and as most of the wedding guests had come from Kotori's side, she had no desire to go out and interact with people she didn't know—especially when Nozomi was with her. The district ruler had already attracted a fair amount of attention and Eli suspected that it could've been worse had the violet-haired woman not had the foresight to bring several security guards with her.

The downside to that situation was, of course, that they would never let Nozomi out of their sight, but she considered it a fairly small price to pay for the fact that no one had approached either of them directly.

"Minami-san is pretty good at planning a wedding, isn't she?" Nozomi commented as she picked up her champagne glass to sip on it.

"I'm pretty sure that's an understatement," Eli told her. "If everything didn't go exactly according to plan, Umi would've had a panic attack before she even made it to the podium."

Nozomi laughed softly. "Now that you mention it, she _did_ look rather nervous to me."

Eli smiled at the memory of the blue-haired bounty hunter and her brunette fiancée exchanging their vows—she had never seen someone look more terrified than Umi had on what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life. "Unfortunately," she said, "that's the way Umi's always been. I'm sure that the crowd around them after the ceremony didn't do anything for her anxiety either."

Dinner had been mostly comprised of rowdy conversation while people milled around, trays in hand—exactly the type of atmosphere she knew her blue-haired friend hated the most. Eli had given Umi a sympathetic glance when Kotori had dragged around her new wife by the hand, introducing her to what seemed like every guest at the reception, and she had been glad to escape the majority of the crowd that was centered around the two of them.

There was a rustle of footsteps on grass behind them.

"Hey."

She looked around. "Maki?"

The redhead looked worn out, her hair coming out of the bun at the back of her head, trailing around her face in wispy ends. "You two seem to be avoiding the crowd pretty well," she commentated without preamble, sipping on the wine in the glass she'd brought with her. "Wish I could say the same for me."

Eli raised an eyebrow. "What happened to that woman you brought with you? Yazawa Nico?"

Maki grimaced. "Don't say the name out loud. She's probably looking for me right now, and trust me when I say that you don't want her to know you're here."

She frowned at her. "So if you don't like her, why did you bring her?"

"Because!" Maki flared up, "I thought it would be a nice thing for me to do, you know? Common courtesy. That's all."

"So how did your date go last time?" Nozomi suddenly spoke up from beside her, and Eli watched Maki instantly flush.

"How many times do I have to tell you?" the redhead snapped. "It _wasn't a date_! We just happened to have several things in common and she invited me to her café so we could chat!"

"Oh, I'm sure," Nozomi said lightly, a mischievous smile lurking at the edges of her expression as Maki scowled at her, tightening her grip on the stem of her wine glass as though she could take her anger out on it.

They were interrupted before the situation could escalate by the sound of someone tapping on a microphone. Looking around, Eli spotted Kotori's mother standing on the podium, microphone in hand. Behind her stood Umi and Kotori. Kotori looked relaxed, beaming at the crowd as she lifted a hand in a small wave. Umi, on the other hand, looked like she would've done anything to be standing anywhere but there.

"Oh for heaven's sake," Maki muttered behind her. "She's _still_ nervous?"

"Maybe you didn't do as good of a job teaching her how to dance as you thought you did," Eli replied.

Maki snorted. "Please. She's going to be great—if she stops looking like someone is going to lynch her any second."

Ignoring Umi's facial expression, Kotori's mother went on. "Friends, family, and guests, draw near," she began, reading off a small piece of paper. "Becoming partners is about more than seeing to one another's daily needs and supporting each other. It is also about two people moving through life in balance with one another and the world around them." She paused as a hush settled over the crowd.

"This dance represents that balance, and allows for partners to demonstrate their understanding of one another, to anticipate, and to make up for each other's weaknesses so that they can bring harmony to their union." She raised a hand. "It is time for us to bear witness to that partnership."

In silence, Kotori and Umi crossed to opposite sides of the dance floor, facing away from each other as they waited for someone to start the music. Eli watched Umi shake out her shoulders underneath her formal kimono slightly and roll her neck.

Slow drums announced the beginning of the dance, but both Kotori and Umi waited for the sound of the harps before moving. The dance started off slow, ponderous as the two of them raised their arms in near unison, coming together and touching their palms together once before breaking apart.

Umi moved left while Kotori curled around her to the right as they pressed their hands together once more before stretching their arms out, the dance speeding up and the movements becoming more frenetic. Eli noticed that, unlike when Umi had been practicing with her, she had learned to compensate for her partner. Whenever Kotori's movements were just a little bit short, she lengthened hers to make up for it.

When the dance slowed once more, Umi's hands did not falter once as they never lost contact with Kotori's. The added burden of having to keep their hands clasped together did not seem to hinder her in any way as the dance became heavy, each movement poignant and meaningful.

As the dance finally ended, and Kotori and Umi came to a stop, arms around each other, eyes closed, chests heaving, Eli found herself exchanging a relieved smile with Maki.

"See," the redhead announced in a whisper. "I knew she could do it."

"I'm impressed," Eli remarked. "How did you get her to stop thinking about it like it was the worst thing that could happen to her?"

Maki shrugged as the crowd began to applaud. "It was easy. Once you stopped being around to intimidate her, all I had to do was translate it into a language she understood."

A new voice called out behind them. " _Maki!_ _There_ you are! Where have you been for the last half an hour? I've been looking for you _forever_!"

The three of them turned around to find a very short, obviously flustered black-haired woman looking at them with a pout on her face, standing just far away enough that she didn't aggravate the few security guards that were lingering in the area. Her hair was pulled up into twintails, curled gently at the ends, although Eli could discern in the darkness that her bangs were uneven underneath the decorative hairpin she wore in her hair. She suppressed her amusement at the fact that the woman was calling Maki by her first name— _that_ was something Maki did not permit lightly, no matter how much she had tried to insist otherwise about the nature of their relationship earlier.

"I-I had to go to the bathroom," Maki stuttered as Nozomi hid a smile behind a hand.

"And you didn't think about looking for me afterwards?" the other woman demanded, placing her hands on her hips. "Why did you bring me if you were going to ditch me?"

"I'm sorry, okay?" the redhead snapped as she took a few steps away from them towards her.

Eli felt Nozomi slip her hand into hers. "I think it's time for us to leave them alone, don't you?" she whispered in her ear.

Turning back to glance at the redhead, standing with her hands balled into fists—an identical posture to the shorter woman she was confronting, Eli laughed. "Agreed," she said quietly.

As they turned to go, Eli heard the black-haired woman raise her voice. "Wait, Maki, is that _Toujou-sama_? Do you know her?"

"No," she heard Maki reply shortly. "I don't know who you're talking about."

" _That's her_! I'm telling you that's her! Do you think she'll let me perform at her next conference meeting if I go up to ask her personally?"

"Oh my," Nozomi commented as they walked away, leaving Maki and her companion behind. "She's going to have her hands full for quite some time, isn't she?"

"Strangely, I think she knows _exactly_ what she's in for," Eli told her. "She's just pretending she doesn't at the moment."

Stopping by a small koi pond, away from the crowd, Nozomi stopped and looked back at her on the pretense of examining a late lilac blossom next to the water. "And you?" she asked. "Do _you_ know what you're getting yourself into?"

There was a moment of silence as Eli processed that particular question. She knew exactly what had spurred the violet-haired woman to ask it, although that fact did nothing for the sudden lump at the back of her throat.

"Yes," she replied, swallowing it. "Unless there's something about all of this that you haven't told me about yet."

Nozomi let go of her hand then, taking a small step away from her until they were facing one another. The violet-haired woman slipped an arm around her neck, pulling her forward until their brows touched. "No," she answered softly, her tone suddenly unusually serious. "I would never do that." There was a pause. "I'm still… really glad we met, you know?"

A small smile twitched at the corners of her mouth as the familiar words washed over her. "Me too," Eli told her, closing her eyes when she felt Nozomi brush her lips against hers.

The rest of what she wanted to say could wait.

* * *

 **The Inspiration Playlist**

Albums: (by release year) _  
_

 _Kataru More_ \- Nanjou Yoshino  
 _Tokyo 1/3650 -_ Nanjou Yoshino  
 _N no Hako_ \- Nanjou Yoshino  
 _Kimi no Na Wa_ \- RADWIMPS

Singles: (in alphabetical order - songs that are included in the above albums are not repeated down below)

 _A/Z_ \- Mizuki  
 _Anatanideawanakereba -Kasetsutouka-_ \- Aimer  
 _Arifureta Kanashimi no Hate_ \- Ayase Eli (CV Nanjou Yoshino)  
 _Ash Like Snow_ \- The Brilliant Green  
 _Black Bullet_ \- fripside  
 _BURN_ \- Flow  
 _Catch the Moment_ \- LiSA  
 _Connect_ \- ClariS  
 _Friends_ \- Stephanie  
 _Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi_ \- UVERworld  
 _Heaven is a Place on Earth_ \- fripside  
 _illuminate_ \- Minami  
 _Kimi ga Inai Mirai_ \- Do As Infinity  
 _Kimi ga Iru Kara_ \- Sayuri  
 _Kirameki (Acoustic ver.)_ \- Wacci  
 _Korekara_ \- μ's  
 _Kyoukara Omoide_ \- Aimer  
 _Life Goes On_ \- Mika Arisaka  
 _A Little Pain_ \- Olivia  
 _Meiro_ \- Kurono Kiria (CV Nanjou Yoshino)  
 _Mijuku DREAMER_ \- Aqours  
 _Mirai_ \- GARNiDELiA  
 _My Hands_ \- Leona Lewis  
 _Ninelie_ \- Aimer ft chelly (EGOIST)  
 _only my railgun_ \- fripside  
 _One more time, one more chance_ \- Koda Kumi  
 _Proof_ \- angela  
 _Qualia_ \- UVERworld  
 _RE: I am_ \- Aimer  
 _Reincarnation_ \- Kurono Kiria (CV Nanjou Yoshino)  
 _Saigo no Kajitsu_ \- Maaya Sakamoto  
 _Sakkaku CROSSROADS_ \- BiBi  
 _Sekai no Subete ga Teki da Toshitemo_ \- Nitta Emi  
 _Separation_ \- angela  
 _Shirushi_ \- LiSA  
 _simple feelings_ \- Nanjou Yoshino  
 _Sora Hoshi Hitotsu_ \- Nanjou Yoshino  
 _Trust You_ \- Yuna Ito  
 _Unlimited Sky_ \- Tommy Heavenly6  
 _Wasurenai Tame ni_ \- Yanagi Nagi

Yeah guys I think it's pretty obvious who my favourite voice is. :^)


	30. Postscript 2: From Now On

**Notes:** Well, I have (not much) to say here other than the fact that this is the promised NozoEli fluff piece I'm been alluding to forever.

Enjoy!

 **Chapter Title:** Korekara (これから lit. _From Now On_ ) - μ's

* * *

A thick curtain of rain obscured everything beyond the fogged window of the car, turning the unfamiliar streets of Kyoto into an impressionist watercolour. When she stepped out of the car, Nozomi spotted a forest of umbrellas on the street outside the hotel grounds, some of the passerby curiously peering at the long procession of cars lined up outside the hotel entrance.

Though it was early autumn, the few drops of rain that had managed to sneak past the umbrella being held upright for her and splashed onto her skin was warm. Behind her, Eli closed the door to the car, falling in closely just behind her shoulder as they made their way to the entrance of the hotel lobby. She could sense the tense anxiety that practically radiated off Eli's skin, but with stewards and various other politicians that she knew were all within earshot, now was not the time to address it, as much as she wanted to.

The ornate double doors of the hotel lobby were held open for them as Nozomi breathed in the inevitable smell that accompanied intricately decorated buildings.

An attendant hurried up to her the moment she crossed the threshold of the lobby. "Toujou-sama," he greeted her, bowing low before straightening. "We're honoured by your presence at this ceremony." He held out a key card in one hand, offering it to her as he checked his watch on his other wrist. "There's still some time before the reception starts—may I suggest for you and your partner to take the time to get ready?"

She took the offered keycard from him as he flicked a quick glance in Eli's direction. Judging by the miniscule, nervous step he took backwards, the look that she had given him in return was her customary less-than-friendly one that she seemed to reserve for anyone of an official standing.

On any other day, Nozomi would have been amused at the impressive speed that the man scuttled away from them, suddenly intent on showing them the way to the elevators. Today, however, she knew Eli's recalcitrance had another source, and it had little to do with the politicians milling around in the lobby.

Smiling at the few familiar senators she recognized in the crowd, it wasn't long before they were alone in an elevator.

"You need to relax, you know," she quipped conversationally, intentionally keeping the tone of her voice light. "That poor attendant looked terrified of you, Elichi."

She watched Eli's reflection in the polished glass scowl at her at the use of the pet name, before Eli looked to the side. "I'm trying," came the eventual reply a few minutes later. Their eyes met in the mirror reflection of the elevator's glass walls and she read the seriousness in the blue eyes looking back at her.

"Trying is good," she acknowledged. "I can accept that."

When she opened the door to the suite a few minutes later, Nozomi noted with a wry smile that apart from the bathroom—which she could spot on her right—the rest of the spacious hotel room was contained in one single room that overlooked the landscape of downtown Kyoto.

She heard a sharp inhalation of breath behind her, and Nozomi turned around to find Eli staring at room beyond her. "What is it?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at the peculiar expression on her face.

Eli looked at her then, disbelief colouring her gaze. "There's _one_ bed."

Nozomi resisted the temptation to laugh. "Yes. And?"

Eli stared back at her, a very familiar blush creeping up her cheeks as she stammered her next words, unable to complete the sentence. "You—Me—"

Unable to fight the smile twitching at the corner of her lips, Nozomi gently pressed a finger to Eli's cheek, tracing the flush of colour on her normally pale skin. "Yes, Elichi?"

Taking a step back from her, Eli buried her face in a hand. "This was a bad idea."

"What was a bad idea?" she asked, tilting her head to one side for effect, though Nozomi had a feeling that deep down, she already knew the answer. "Did you really expect them to put us in separate rooms when I informed them that you were coming with me? Or does the idea of sharing a bed with me for a few nights frighten you _that_ much?" she inquired innocently, the smile on her face widening when the blonde dropped the hand to gape at her.

" _What_?" Eli spluttered, taking a step backward in a slightly defensive posture. " _No_ —that's not what—I mean—" She made a frustrated sound at the back of her throat, throwing her hands up in indignation.

Nozomi laughed out loud at her reaction, reaching her own hand forward to take her hand. "It's so easy to get you worked up about things like this," she commented lightly. "I've forgotten how endearing it is." She took a deep breath, the weight of her next words turning her voice soft and serious. "Eli," she began, dropping the suffix at the end of her name. "Be honest with me. Does it bother you that much? I don't mean just about the bed. I mean being here with me in general."

She looked up to meet Eli's gaze, not at all surprised to find the solemnity in the blue eyes looking back at her. "Yes… and no," Eli admitted, her stiff fingers in her hand relaxing ever so slightly. "I—I guess I'm still in disbelief that you asked me to come with you. It… means a lot to me that you want me to be here with you. But… the thing that bothers me is that they're calling it at commemorative ceremony for the first anniversary of the cure for Edenra. None of the people who are here know what, exactly, they're celebrating. It's not a victory. It's a reminder of the things that we've done to even make that past possible."

Nozomi pressed her lips together, looking down at their conjoined hands. "I know," she said softly. "But you said it yourself. People will only ever understand what they have experienced themselves. To expect anyone here to understand the sacrifices that that day entailed would be wishing for a miracle."

Eli lifted her gaze by the tiniest margin. "I know," she repeated.

"Are you going to be okay?" Nozomi asked her. "You can leave the reception early if you'd like. I don't think that it's likely you'll be missed if you do." She checked the time on an ornate clock hanging from the wall. "Though it _is_ about time we started getting ready to go back down."

Eli half-turned to look at the clock as well. "Okay," she acknowledged. "…Thanks," she added in a quieter voice as she walked back to the entrance to retrieve her bag.

"Anytime, Elichi."

* * *

Looking into the reflection of the unfamiliar mirror in front of her, Nozomi smoothed out her dress, running her hands over the loose layers of fabric before picking up the hairpin on the surface of the dresser, pushing it into the right side of her bangs to keep them away from her face. The tiny decorative diamonds on its surface glinted in the bright glare of the overhead light as she turned toward the bathroom.

"Are you almost ready?" she called into the smaller room. She watched the bathroom door in the mirror for a few seconds before she opened it, finding Eli sitting down in front of the larger mirror with several pins in her mouth. The hair comb that she had given her was lying on the counter of the sink, momentarily abandoned in Eli's efforts to make her long blonde hair obey.

"This is pointless," she muttered through the mouthful of hair pins.

Laughing softly, Nozomi made her way over to where Eli was sitting, deftly replacing her hands with her own as she twisted the last, errant lock of hair into place before holding out her right hand for one of the pins in Eli's mouth.

Reluctantly, Eli removed one of them from between her teeth and pressed it into her palm. Nozomi closed her hand around it, using it to secure the carefully twisted strands of hair. Reaching over Eli's shoulder, she picked up the comb, tracing her thumb over its intricate, floral design before she slid it into place above the gathered locks of hair.

" _I_ see a point," Nozomi told her softly, watching for Eli's reaction in the mirror. "You look beautiful."

She smiled as Eli looked away, the faintest trace of pink appearing on her cheeks underneath the thin layer of makeup, though she could see the hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"Come on," she prompted her. "It's almost time to go."

The ride down to the hotel lobby was mostly silent, although noise was already drifting up from the ground floor. Beyond the glass walls of the elevator, Nozomi could already spot the large gathering of politicians in the hotel lobby, milling around the tables that had been set up.

When they arrived on first floor of the hotel, they were almost immediately greeted by a politician she knew had been a particular friend of her father's from Kyoto.

"Toujou-sama," he addressed her warmly. "It's a welcome change to see you here."

Nozomi gave him a small half-smile as she took his offered hand in her gloved one. "Likewise, Morishige-san." She watched his gaze flit to Eli, who was standing at her shoulder.

"And who might this be?" he inquired politely. Behind the impassive mask of his features, curiousity gleamed.

"Ah, yes. May I introduce you to Ayase Eli, my partner."

There was a brief flicker of surprise on his face before he erased it smoothly, offering his hand to Eli. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ayase-san." Turning back to her, he gave her a practiced, easy smile. "I seem to recall that you preferred to keep to yourself in the past, Toujou-sama."

"That is true," Nozomi informed him, "but things have changed since then."

He gave her a meaningful nod, as though he had known about that particular fact for years. "Yes. I can see that." He paused. "If I may, you look happy."

"Thank you," she replied lightly, accepting his compliment with a small nod of her own.

He inclined his head and neck slightly in a bow before moving away from them, taking a wineglass off the tray of a passing waiter.

"So what did you think?" Nozomi murmured, giving Eli a sidelong glance.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eli straighten her shoulders before looking up. "Are they all like that?" she asked in an undertone.

Nozomi pressed her lips together in a smile. "Yes. Trust me when I say that he's one of the more pleasant ones. I _did_ warn you earlier that it was going to be a long evening."

Eli heaved a sigh. "I can tell."

* * *

When Nozomi finally made her way—alone—back to the suite that had been prepared for them, she found no trace of Eli in the hallway or the balcony just outside the elevator doors that led to the rooftop garden.

She had suspected that the air of celebration downstairs would be too much for her and had not been surprised when Eli had told her—two hours earlier—that she would be leaving. Had it been any other social occasion, Nozomi would have insisted she stay and explained to her the social etiquette regarding formal ceremonies now that she was in a world that she had not grown up in, but not tonight.

Tapping the keycard on the automated door, she slowly pushed down on the heavy handle and pushed the door ajar, looking around to survey the dark room. She didn't see Eli on the bed or anywhere in her line of sight, but she spotted several hairpins lying scattered on the ground, along with a pair of long, cream gloves. For a moment, she wondered if Eli was in the shower.

That was before she heard her clear her throat.

"Back?" The question was dry, and a little bit unsteady.

Nozomi stepped fully inside and closed the door behind her, staring at Eli in mild disbelief—she was sitting on the floor, with one bra strap having slipped off her shoulder underneath the strap of her dress, holding and empty wine glass in one hand and three quarters drunk bottle of wine in the other.

 _I don't know if I should be surprised, or not._

"May I ask… where you got that from?" Nozomi made an effort to keep her voice neutral and unaccusatory—she could usually anticipate whether Eli would become more or less animated on her rare episodes of complete inebriation. If she was honest with herself, she knew she shouldn't have been surprised at Eli's choice of coping mechanism for that evening—especially given the limited options they currently had—and part of her wished that it would have been socially acceptable for _her_ to leave the reception early to prevent the exact situation in front of her right now.

"The fridge," came the vague reply. Eli made a motion to refill her glass, which did _not_ look like a good idea.

Kneeling in front of her girlfriend, Nozomi took over the task of pouring the dark alcoholic drink and stopped at the halfway point. She paused to straighten the strap on Eli's shoulder before easily taking both the bottle and the wineglass away from her slender fingers.

Sipping on the wine before Eli could protest, Nozomi gently tugged on her shoulders, eventually managing to coax her into sitting on the edge of the bed before she made her way to the kitchenette to replace the wine in the fridge.

When she opened the door of the appliance, she noted wryly that the bottle of wine was not the only alcoholic drink that occupied the space within. Shaking her head slightly, she finished the half-glass of the drink in question.

As she did so, she wondered absentmindedly how Eli had managed to destroy herself with three fourths of a bottle—it was either uncommonly strong, which she doubted based on the taste, or Eli was out of practice, a prospect she found hard to believe.

When Nozomi returned to the room, she sat down on the bed beside her. "Would you like to talk about it?" she asked softly.

Eli leaned against her, their arms pressed tightly together as she rested her head on her shoulder. "Can we… talk about this tomorrow?" she asked plaintively, closing her eyes. "So I _won't_ come off sounding like an idiot?"

She smiled. "Okay."

A thought came to mind as she gingerly repositioned Eli so that she was resting against the pillows behind them. "Eli," she began seriously, trying to think back amongst the flurry of politicians and other officials she had greeted that evening. "Did you happen to have anything to eat before you came back up?"

There were a few moments of silence. "No," the blonde answered finally, her voice muffled by the fluff of the pillow she had her face buried against.

It was in that moment that their current situation suddenly made perfect sense.

"Eli," she admonished, "you could have called room service for that. Do you still want something?"

Eli shook her head against the pillow.

"No. Why bother at this point? Do you really think it's going to help at this point?"

"Maybe not," she replied delicately, shifting closer to her, "but did you think drinking would? Although this might work out in my favour, seeing as it's gotten you over your aversion to sharing a bed."

Eli lifted her head from the pillow to glare at her with hazy blue eyes. "You did this on purpose, didn't you? You're a terrible person."

Nozomi smiled again at the impotent accusation, shaking her head. "For the record, I didn't—but it still can't hurt to get you some food," she insisted, gently shaking Eli's shoulder.

When there was no immediate response, she made a motion to get up to find the phone she was fairly certain was on one of the tables by the kitchenette.

Slender fingers curled around her wrist the moment her weight left the side of the bed, tugging her back. "I really… don't want anything. Could you… just… stay?"

Nozomi looked back at her then, reading the shadows of vulnerability that lurked at the edges of her expression. Eli was rarely—if at all—clingy, and even if part of it was currently the alcohol talking, that just meant that the other half was the result of baggage behind the scenes that had yet to be resolved.

"I'm not going anywhere," she reassured her as she sat back down, reaching over to pull the remaining hairpins out of Eli's hair. "Go to sleep, Elichi."

* * *

Nozomi was woken up by the sound of someone bolting for the bathroom. For a moment, she was taken aback by the unfamiliar environment around her, before she remembered where she was—and more importantly, _why_ she had been woken up by the sound of footsteps running to the bathroom. Sitting up blearily, she rubbed her eyes before looking for the display of the wall clock on the opposite side of the room.

The illuminated display read 0317.

Stepping down from the bedframe, she made her way to the kitchenette for a cup of water before slowly following Eli's footsteps into the adjoining bathroom, taking her time in the darkness in case she tripped over something.

Peeking inside warily, she found her girlfriend curled up on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor next to the toilet.

Suppressing a knowing sigh, Nozomi slipped into the bathroom, taking a towel off the rack beside the sink and wetting it slightly with cold water. Pausing only to take an elastic band off the collection of hair accessories lying around the sink counter from the previous evening, she wordlessly smoothed out the towel underneath where Eli had her head resting against the side of the bathtub before she pulled back the strands of messy blonde hair from her face, tying it into a ponytail.

She knelt down beside her after that. "I told you so," she chided gently, feeling Eli's clammy face with the back of her hand.

Eli opened one of her eyes slightly, wincing at the brightness of the single lamp left on in the bathroom. "You don't say," she croaked. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty."

Smiling at that, Nozomi handed her the cup she had brought with her. "You should think of a better way to deal with all of this next time instead of destroying your liver."

Eli choked out a dry laugh at her response. "Let me know when you find something, will you?"

"Oh, I will."

They stayed in the bathroom for the better part of an hour—it was close to 0400 before Nozomi decided that it was safe to return Eli to bed. Gently slipping her arms underneath Eli's to haul her upright, the journey back to bed took nearly ten minutes.

When she finally helped Eli back onto the mattress, she sat down on its edge again, watching Eli drape an arm over her eyes against the light coming from the corner. Getting up, she crossed the room to turn it off before returning to her previous spot. "Better?" she asked quietly.

In the near-darkness, she saw Eli nod.

The mattress shifted as Nozomi squeezed herself onto narrow space between Eli and the edge of the bed. Resting her head against Eli's shoulder, she reached for her hand with her own. "You know, we can talk about all of this before this happens in the future, right?" she said softly. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to do that before things got to this point."

"Don't be sorry," Eli mumbled. "I brought this upon myself, stupidly enough."

"Isn't that more incentive for you to talk to me about things like this in the future?" she asked.

"Mm." Eli's voice was soft. "Thank you." There was a pause. "For offering."

Nozomi shifted ever so slightly so that her face rested against Eli's neck.

"Always."

* * *

 **Closing Notes:**

... And that's a wrap. I just wanted to thank you guys so much again for reading my writing, and all the love you guys have left me. I lived for the comments/kudos on AO3 and I can't tell you guys how much it means to me and how much I appreciate them, so when I received the reminder from someone on here that I never finished it on FFN I realized that I should probably actually post the rest of this fic, haha.

If you enjoyed my writing, I'm currently in the middle of a new NozoEli fic (when I have the rest of my life together that is) on AO3 called Chaos Theory, ft Phantom Thief Toujou Nozomi vs Senior Investigator Ayase Eli. Check it out of that tickles your fancy, or alternatively follow me on Twitter (ashera_ is my handle) so you can see me rant/watch me whale for idol girls/Nanjolno. :3c


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